International Business Machines Corporation

Abigail S Ganong

Gregory J Dick

John George Hartley

John W Pavick

Joseph B Frei

Virginia M Chung

Denise M Puisto

Edward J Stashluk, Jr

An e-beam system for making masks corrects the beam for pattern-dependent errors by executing the bulk of the post-processing program only once, with two sets of output data being generated by the encode routine. A first output file of the encode routine generates the beam control data without pattern-dependent corrections. A second output file merges the beam control data with the data for metrology marks. A test wafer is patterned using the second output file and measured to generate a set of pattern correction data. Production wafers are written using the beam control data corrected on the fly by the pattern correction data.

Correction of pattern-dependent errors in a particle beam lithography system

A system and method of converting large Integrated Circuit (IC) designs into patterns. First, based on shape density, the design is fragmented into pieces, each piece including roughly the same number of shapes. Next, a band of shapes, all within the proximity correction area for each piece, are identified. Each piece, including its identified band, is processed individually to convert data within the piece and within the proximity correction band to Numerical Control (NC) data. The NC data for the proximity correction band is discarded. The piece's NC data is stored as an NC data file for the piece. This is repeated until all of the pieces are converted to NC data. Finally, the pattern is written, one piece at a time.

Piece-wise processing of very large semiconductor designs

A system and method for exposing a radiation sensitive layer to one or more repetitious design cells. Each design cell includes at least one design shape on at least one buildlevel. Each shape represents a circuit shape, or part of a circuit shape on an integrated circuit layer in a circuit on an integrated circuit chip. For each buildlevel: the design is parceled into units that contain approximately the same optimum number of vertices; and for each parcel: Each design cell occurrence, or transform, is examined to determine whether it has proximity effect commonality with other cell transforms (a common environment) and, based on that determination, the cell transform is placed into one of three groups, Macro Candidates, Nested Candidates, and Unnested Candidates. In each Macro Candidate and Nested Candidate any overlapping shapes are combined, or unioned, to form a single shape and, then, the shapes are reconstructed (filled) with rectangles (fill rectangles). Each Macro Candidate design cell is proximity corrected for forward and backward scattering, and the result is placed in a Macro Buffer. Each Nested Candidate design cell is proximity corrected for forward scattering. Nested Candidates are unnested and merged with the Unnested Candidates. The unnested shapes are proximity corrected, former Nested Candidates are proximity corrected for backward scattering and former Unnested Candidates are proximity Corrected for forward and backward scattering. The proximity corrected unnested shapes are stored in a pattern buffer. Finally, the proximity corrected shapes are passed from the pattern buffer and the macro buffer to an electron beam (E-beam) tool as Numerical Control (NC) data.

E-beam control data compaction system and method

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Sherman, CT, United States of America

Abigail S Ganong