A pattern of a desired size is formed on a semiconductor substrate by the following procedure. A property, including at least one of an aberration of an exposure device, a property of an illumination, a property of a projection lens, and a pattern coverage in a shot, are allocated, in a first database, to predetermined positions assigned in a chip. A second database is prepared by pairing a cell name of a cell extracted from hierarchical processing of a design pattern and arrangement positional data of the cell. The property data is allocated to the cell based on the first and second databases. Mask data processing based on at least one of the property data is executed, and the cell subjected to the mask data processing is rearranged on the chip.