System and method of predicting problematic areas for lithography in a circuit design

• US 8,239,789 B2
• Filed: 04/05/2011
• Issued: 08/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Industry Software Inc. (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Brunner, Timothy A., Greco, Stephen E., Liegl, Bernhard R., Xiang, Hua
• Primary Examiner(s): Rossoshek, Helen
• Application Number:
  US13/080,148
• Publication Number:
  US 20110184715A1
• Time in Patent Office: 490 Days
• Field of Search: 716/51, 716/52, 716/54, 716/106, 716/111, 716/112, 716/132, 716/136, 716/139, 430/5, 430/30, 430/394
• US Class Current: 716/55
• CPC Class Codes: G03F 1/36 Masks having proximity correction features; Preparation thereof, e.g. optical proximity correction [OPC] design processes
• CPC Class Codes: G03F 1/70 Adapting basic layout or design of masks to lithographic process requirements, e.g., second iteration correction of mask patterns for imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G03F 7/705 Modelling or simulating from physical phenomena up to complete wafer processes or whole workflow in wafer productions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/30 Circuit design

Abstract

A system and method is provided which predicts problematic areas for lithography in a circuit design, and more specifically, which uses modeling data from a modeling tool to accurately predict problematic lithographic areas. The method includes identifying surface heights of plurality of tiles of a modeled wafer, and mathematically mimicking a lithographic tool to determine best planes of focus for exposure for the plurality of tiles.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising a tangible computer-usable storage medium having a computer readable program stored in the tangible computer-usable storage medium, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, is operable to cause the computing device to:

identify surface heights of one or more tiles of a modeled wafer;

mathematically mimic a lithographic tool to determine best planes of focus for exposure for the one or more tiles;

predict an average distance of the surface heights for a plurality of fields of exposure for each of the plurality of tiles which comprises calculating a predetermined number of focal planes for each tile in a reticle field.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the identifying surface heights of the plurality tiles determines a three dimensional texture of the modeled wafer.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein an average distance of the surface heights of the plurality of fields of exposure for each tile is a three dimensional representation of a surface texture at a location on the modeled wafer.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the tangible computer-usable storage medium is an apparatus that contains, stores, communicates the computer readable program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, an apparatus, or a device.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the tangible computer-usable storage medium is an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system.

6. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the tangible computer-usable storage medium is an apparatus.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the tangible computer-usable storage medium is a device.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the tangible computer-usable storage medium includes a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk.