A cost-driven lithographic correction methodology based on off-the-shelf sizing tools

As minimum feature sizes continue to shrink, patterned features have become significantly smaller than the wavelength of light used in optical lithography. As a result, the requirement for dimensional variation control, especially in critical dimension (CD) 3, has become more stringent. To meet these requirements, resolution enhancement techniques (RET) such as optical proximity correction (OPC) and phase shift mask (PSM) technology are applied. These approaches result in a substantial increase in mask costs and make the cost of ownership (COO) a key parameter in the comparison of lithography technologies. No concept of function is injected into the mask flow; that is, current OPC techniques are oblivious to the design intent, and the entire layout is corrected uniformly with the same effort. We propose a novel minimum cost of correction (MinCorr) methodology to determine the level of correction for each layout feature such that prescribed parametric yield is attained with minimum tot...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: DAC
• Authors: Puneet Gupta, Andrew B. Kahng, Dennis Sylvester, Jie Yang
• Keywords: DAC 2003, Design Automation, Minimum Total Ret, Optical Proximity Correction, Substantial Ret Costs