International Business Machines Corporation

Infineon Technologies North America Corp.

Azalia A Krasnoperova

Lars W Liebmann

Scott Marshall Mansfield

Ioana C Graur

James A Culp

Klaus Herold

Ian P Stobert

Karen D Badger

An apparatus, a method of designing the apparatus, a tool using the apparatus and a method of using the apparatus for optimizing optical photolithography during formation of integrated circuits. The apparatus includes: an asymmetrical complementary dipole element including: first and second openings being equidistant and mirror images about a first axis, the first and second openings having essentially a same first area and a same first optical density relative to a selected wavelength of light; third and fourth openings being equidistant and mirror images about a second axis, the third and fourth openings having essentially a same second area, and a same second optical density relative to the selected wavelength of light; and wherein the first axis is perpendicular to the second axis and the first and second optical densities are different.

Asymmetric complementary dipole illuminator

An apparatus, a method of designing the apparatus, a tool using the apparatus and a method of using the apparatus for optimizing optical photolithography during formation of integrated circuits. The apparatus includes: an asymmetrical complementary dipole element including: first and second openings being equidistant and minor images about a first axis, the first and second openings having essentially a same first area and a same first optical density relative to a selected wavelength of light; third and fourth openings being equidistant and minor images about a second axis, the third and fourth openings having essentially a same second area, and a same second optical density relative to the selected wavelength of light; and wherein the first axis is perpendicular to the second axis and the first and second optical densities are different.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for making mask shape adjustment The method includes creating a first mask shape; identifying one or more mask segments of the first mask shape as candidate mask segments of needing segment adjustment; applying an optical proximity correction (OPC) process to the first mask shape, the OPC process identifying at least one of the candidate mask segments as a constrained mask segment; applying a rotational adjustment to the constrained mask segment; and creating a second mask shape having the constrained mask segment being rotationally adjusted. A system and a machine-readable medium for performing the above method are also provided.

Adjustment of mask shapes for improving printability of dense integrated circuit layout

A method of conveying the designer's intended electrical characteristics for a semiconductor design is provided by forming tolerance bands for a design layer of interest that take into consideration constraints from design layers that interact with and influence the features on the design layer of interest. The method determines regions, i.e. tolerance bands, within which the printed edges of features of the layer of interest will print within a predetermined criterion, and satisfy a variety of constraints, including, but not limited to, electrical, overlay and manufacturability constraints arising from the influence of features on other layers. The method may be implemented in a computer program product for execution on a computer system. The resulting tolerance bands can be used to efficiently convey the designer's intent to a lithographer, an OPC engineer or a mask manufacturer or tool.

Designer's intent tolerance bands for proximity correction and checking

A method and system for performing the method are provided for designing a mask layout that includes selecting simulation sites for optical proximity correction (OPC) or mask verification, prior to fragmentation of shape edges. The primary simulation sites are selected based upon the influence of adjacent shapes, and then fragmentation is performed based on the primary simulation sites. Preferably, the simulation sites are selected by initial simulation within a region of influence of the vertices of mask shapes. The extrema of the resulting simulations are identified, and the intersection of a projection from the extrema to shape edges is used to define the primary simulation sites. Fragmentation of the edges may then be performed as long as the primary simulation sites thus selected are retained. The resulting simulation sites will allow the OPC engine to more effectively correct the shapes where the greatest influences will occur.

Simulation site placement for lithographic process models

A mask inspection method and system. Provided is a mask fabrication database describing geometrical shapes S to be printed as part of a mask pattern on a reticle to fabricate a mask through use of a mask fabrication tooling. The shapes S appear on the mask as shapes S' upon being printed. At least one of the shapes S&#x2032; may be geometrically distorted relative to a corresponding at least one of the shapes S due to a lack of precision in the mask fabrication tooling. Also provided is a mask inspection database to be used for inspecting the mask after the mask has been fabricated by the mask fabrication tooling. The mask inspection database describes shapes S&#x2033; approximating the shapes S&#x2032;. A geometric distortion between the shapes S&#x2032; and S&#x2033; is less than a corresponding geometric distortion between the shapes S&#x2032; and S.

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Mahwah, NJ, United States of America

Azalia A Krasnoperova