Patent ID: 8026495

Claim:
A charged particle beam system, the system comprising: a charged particle source for generating at least one beam of charged particles; a multi-aperture plate having a plurality of apertures; charged particle optics configured to direct beamlets of charged particles traversing the apertures of the multi-aperture plate onto a charged particle sensitive substrate; a plurality of beamlet manipulating electrodes, wherein each aperture has at least one beamlet manipulating electrode associated therewith for modulating the beamlet traversing the aperture; and a control system comprising a plurality of shift registers, each shift register having at least one input and plural stages, wherein the at least one beamlet manipulating electrode of each aperture is controlled by at least one stage of the shift registers in dependence of an output state of the at least one stage; wherein each input has a group of stages associated therewith, wherein the output states of only the stages of the group of stages are dependent on states of the respective input; wherein the plurality of apertures comprises plural groups of apertures, wherein the apertures of each group of apertures are disposed on the multi-aperture plate along a straight line; wherein the electrodes of the apertures of each group of apertures are controlled by stages of plural groups of stages, wherein a number of apertures having electrodes controlled by a first group of the plural groups of stages differs from a number of apertures having electrodes controlled by a second group of the plural groups of stages.