| 摘要 |
<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a tool for optimizing an illumination source and a mask for use in lithographic apparatuses and processes. <P>SOLUTION: According to certain aspects, the present invention enables full chip pattern coverage while lowering the computation cost by intelligently selecting a small set 306 of critical design patterns from the full set 302 of clips to be used in light source and mask optimization. Optimization is performed only on these selected patterns to obtain an optimized light source. The optimized light source is then used to optimize the mask (e.g. using OPC and manufacturability verification 320) for the full chip, and the process window performance results are compared (322). If the results are comparable to conventional full-chip SMO, the process ends, otherwise various methods are provided for iteratively converging on the successful result. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT |
