Abstract: A method for automatically positioning a workpiece having at least one marking, specifically a wafer for integrated circuits which is to be processed in a charged-particle beam apparatus, relative to a scanning field or mask. In the method, a scanning beam scans the workpiece along the line and a marking signal is generated when the marking is reached by the beam. This marking signal controls a device which generates a control signal in response to the marking signal which is proportional to the deviation of the marking position from a reference position and which drives a device for correcting the position of the workpiece relative to the scanning field or mask.

Abstract: A method for irradiating a specimen by corpuscular-beam radiation in which an irradiated surface pattern including isolated areas unexposed to the corpuscular beam surrounded at least almost completely by areas exposed to the beam is generated on a specimen by first imaging a mask which is supported by a support grid comprising a plurality of parallel strips and having a pattern corresponding to the surface pattern to be generated, on the specimen by shadow projection by means of a corpuscular beam consisting of a plurality of parallel rays. The image of the supporting grid is then removed by tilting the corpuscular beam in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the strips forming the support grid through an angle which is at least equal in radians to the ratio of the width of the strips to the distance between the mask and the specimen.