A hybrid model/pattern based OPC approach for improvedconsistency and TAT

摘要

As the technology advances, OPC run time turns to be a big concern and a great deal of our efforts is directed towardsspeeding up the LITHO operations. In addition, the OPC simulation consistency is sometimes deteriorated which is acritical issue especially for anchor features. On the other hand, full chip designs usually comprise large arrays of basiccells, used by OPC engineers to tune OPC recipes, which is evident for instance for memory design and processor chips.The model based OPC technique is not necessary for such designs provided that the equivalent mask shapes for one cellof these arrays are already known.In this work, we introduce a combined approach using model and pattern based OPC. Pattern matching is used to extractregions from full chips that match the basic designs stored in pre-created libraries. When matching occurs, OPC solutionstored in these libraries is used and populated across matched areas. Special treatment for large array boundaries isapplied due to proximity effects. Model based OPC is used for the rest of the chip. This approach has two mainadvantages. First, simulation consistency is greatly improved since the OPC solution for standard cells is priory known.Also, pattern matching is a DRC based tool and thus it is very fast compared to LITHO operations and hence TAT isfurther enhanced.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.