Design flow automation for variable-shaped beam pattern generators

Bloecker, Martin; Ballhorn, Gerd

doi:10.1117/12.476937

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…The most time consuming step during fracturing of design data for vector-shaped beam (VSB) mask writers is the so called repolygonization which is necessary due to the unique way of pattern generation of this ma- chine type [8]. Compared to this the additional time required for sizing (global or local) is comparably small.…”

Section: Computational Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

<title>Compensation of long-range process effects on photomasks by design data correction</title>

Bloecker¹,

Ballhorn²,

Schneider³

et al. 2003

19th European Conference on Mask Technology for Integrated Circuits and Microcomponents

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CD requirements for advanced photomasks are getting very demanding for the 100 nm-node and below; the ITRS roadmap requires CD uniformities below 10 nm for the most critical layers. To reach this goal, statistical as well as systematic CD contributions must be minimized. Here, we focus on the reduction of systematic CD variations across the masks that may be caused by process effects, e.g. dry etch loading. We address this topic by compensating such effects via design data correction analogous to proximity correction. Dry etch loading is modeled by gaussian convolution of pattern densities. Data correction is done geometrically by edge shifting. As the effect amplitude has an order of magnitude of 10 nm this can only be done on e-beam writers with small address grids to avoid big CD steps in the design data. We present modeling and correction results for special mask patterns with very strong pattern density variations showing that the compensation method is able to reduce CD uniformity by 50 -70 % depending on pattern details. The data correction itself is done with a new module developed especially to compensate long-range effects and fits nicely into the common data flow environment. For advanced photomasks the mask data preparation times have become a major issue. To tackle this fracture time increase distributed processing has been introduced into the photomask design flow. We also report first results on the fracture time reduction achievable by distributing the data correction onto a Linux cluster.

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Section: Computational Performancementioning

confidence: 99%