The present invention relates to monitoring and controlling a reticle
fabrication process (e.g. employed with an electron beam lithography
process). A typical fabrication process involves discrete stages
including exposure, post-exposure bake and development. After fabrication
is complete, an inspection can be performed on the reticle to determine
whether any parameters during fabrication and/or any data points are
outside of acceptable tolerances. The data is collected and fed into an
algorithm (e.g. data-mining algorithm) utilized to determine which
fabrication parameters need to be modified then sends the data to a
control system (e.g. advanced process control) to facilitate needed
changes to the fabrication parameters.