True Reticle cost saving by Multi Level Reticle approach

摘要

Today reticle costs become one of the main contributors in the cost of manufacturing of advanced logic products.Especially for low volume projects as of product sampling as well as design and product verifications the saving ofreticle costs becomes worthwhile. Multi level reticles are the combination of more then one lithographical layer on onephysical reticle. Due to this approach the physical amount of reticles per tape out will be reduced and thereby also thecosts for reticles will be significantly decreased. The multi level reticle approach is implemented as standard option inthe INFINEON Technologies tape out flow for advanced logic products. This means dependent on forecasted volumeand chip size it could be decided to tape out a project on multi level- or single level reticle. Technical setup, reticlelayout, specification, CAD flow and experience in daily work using multi level reticles in different design nodes will beshown. Reticle cost advantage versus reduced throughput will be discussed.