Patent ID: 8030626

Claim:
A charged-particle beam writing apparatus for radiating a charged-particle beam onto a writing area of a sample placed on a stage while moving the stage at varied speeds, the stage being movable in two first mutually opposite directions and in two second mutually opposite directions perpendicular to the first directions, the apparatus comprising: a write time acquiring unit configured to acquire write time for each of small areas that are obtained by sectioning the entire writing area of the sample in either one of the first directions into strip-shaped areas and further sectioning each of the strip-shaped areas in either one of the second directions; a block size determining unit configured to determine a tentative block size by which to form each of blocks from at least one of the small areas such that each of the blocks includes the same number of small areas and thereafter modifying the tentative block size into an optimal block size with the use of the average write speed of write speeds for the blocks and write speed variation of the blocks with respect to the average write speed so that the write speed variation becomes equal to or less than a predetermined value; a stage speed calculating unit configured to calculate a stage speed for each of blocks of the optimal block size determined by the block size determining unit; and a stage control unit configured to control the movement of the stage based on the stage speeds calculated by the stage speed calculating unit.