CONTRAST BASED RESOLUTION ENHANCEMENT FOR PHOTOLITHOGRAPHIC PROCESSING

• US 20070124708A1
• Filed: 01/30/2007
• Published: 05/31/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Industry Software Limited (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Mentor Graphics Corporation (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Granik, Yuri, Torres Robles, Juan
• Granted Patent: US 7,562,336 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 716/53
• CPC Class Codes: G03F 1/36 Masks having proximity correction features; Preparation thereof, e.g. optical proximity correction [OPC] design processes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2119/18 Manufacturability analysis or optimisation for manufacturability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/39 Circuit design at the physical level physical level design for reconfigurable circuits G06F30/347
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

A contrast-based resolution enhancing technology (RET) determines a distribution of contrast values for edge fragments in a design layout or portion thereof. Resolution enhancement is applied to the edge fragments in a way that increases the number of edge fragments having a contrast value that exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Claims

1. A method of processing a data layout file that defines a plurality of features to be created in an integrated device, comprising:

receiving at least a portion of the input file that defines a number of features to be created in the integrated device;

fragmenting each of the features into a number of edge fragments;

tagging each of the edge fragments with a contrast value;

determining a distribution of contrast values for the tagged edge fragments; and

determining if one or more resolution enhancements should be applied to the data layout file based on the distribution of contrast values.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determination of whether one or more resolution enhancements should be applied is made by determining the number of edge fragments having contrast values that are greater than a threshold contrast value.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determination of whether one or more resolution enhancements should be applied is made by determining the number of edge fragments having contrast values that are lower than a threshold contrast value.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determination of whether one or more resolution enhancements should be applied is made by determining the ratio of the number of contrast values that are lower than a threshold contrast value to the number of edge fragments that have contrast values that are higher than the threshold contrast value.

5. A computer readable media including a sequence of programmed instructions that cause a computer system to implement any of the method claims 1-4.

6. A data layout file describing a number of features to be created in an integrated device that has been processed according to any of the method claims 1-4.