An approach of auto-fix post OPC hot spots

摘要

With the design rule shrinks rapidly, full chip robust Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) will definitely need longer time due to the increasing pattern density. Furthermore, to achieve a perfect OPC control recipe becomes more difficult. For, the critical dimension of the design features is deeply sub exposure wavelength, and there is only limited room for the OPC correction. Usually very complicated fragment commands need to be developed to handle the shrinking designs, which can be infinitely complicated. So when you finished debug a sophisticated fragment scripts, you still cannot promise that the script is universal for all kinds of design. So when you find some hot spot after you apply OPC correction for certain design. The only thing you can do is to modify your fragmentation script and try to re-apply OPC on this design. But considering the increasing time that is needed for applying full chip OPC nowadays, re-apply OPC will definitely prolong the tape-out time. We here demonstrate an approach, through which we can automatically fix some simple hotspots like pinch, bridging. And re-run OPC for the full chip is not necessary now. However, this work is only the early study of the auto-fix of post OPC hot spots. There is still a long way need to go to provide a perfect solution of this issue.