International Business Machines Corporation

Nakgeuon Seong

Mark Alan Lavin

Fook-Luen Heng

Lars W Liebmann

Alan Edward Rosenbluth

John Maxwell Cohn

James A Culp

Ulrich Alfons Finkler

Rama Nand Singh

Gregory Allen Northrop

Leon Stok

Jin Fuw Lee

Timothy A Brunner

Gregg M Gallatin

Ronald L Gordon

Pieter J Woeltgens

Bruce Bennett Doris

Oleg Gluschenkov

Meikei Ieong

Kafai Lai

Christopher P Ausschnitt

Christopher J Progler

Gregory Costrini

Daniel A Corliss

Frances Anne Houle

Alexey Y Lvov

William Dinan Hinsberg

John Allen Hoffnagle

Daniel Lawrence Ostapko

Joseph P Kirk

Jin-Fuw Lee

Martha Inez Sanchez

Pieter J Woltgens

A design system for designing complex integrated circuits (ICs), a method of IC design and program product therefor. A layout unit receives a circuit description representing portions in a grid and glyph format. A checking unit checks grid and glyph portions of the design. An elaboration unit generates a target layout from the checked design. A data prep unit prepares the target layout for mask making. A pattern caching unit selectively replaces portions of the design with previously cached results for improved design efficiency.

Physical design system and method

A method for determining an image of a patterned object formed by a polychromatic lithographic projection system having a laser radiation source of a finite spectral bandwidth and a lens for imaging the patterned object to an image plane within a resist layer. The method comprises providing patterns for the object, a spectrum of the radiation source to be used in the lithographic projection system, an intensity and polarization distribution of the radiation source, and a lens impulse response in the spatial domain or in the spatial frequency domain of the image. The method then includes forming a polychromatic 4D bilinear vector kernel comprising a partially coherent polychromatic joint response between pairs of points in the spatial domain or in the spatial frequency domain, determining the dominant polychromatic 2D kernels of the polychromatic 4D bilinear vector kernel, and determining the image of the patterned object from convolutions of the object patterns with the dominant polychromatic 2D kernels.

Fast method to model photoresist images using focus blur and resist blur

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device structure that includes at least one SRAM cell formed in a substrate. Such SRAM cell comprises two pull-up transistors, two pull-down transistors, and two pass-gate transistors. The pull-down transistors and the pass-gate transistors are substantially similar in channel widths and have substantially similar source-drain doping concentrations, while the SRAM cell has a beta ratio of at least 1.5. The substrate preferably comprises a hybrid substrate with at two isolated sets of regions, while carrier mobility in these two sets of regions differentiates by a factor of at least about 1.5. More preferably, the pull-down transistors of the SRAM cell are formed in one set of regions, and the pass-gate transistors are formed in the other set of regions, so that current flow in the pull-down transistors is larger than that in the pass-gate transistors.

Highly manufacturable SRAM cells in substrates with hybrid crystal orientation

A method and system for layout optimization relative to lithographic process windows which facilitates lithographic constraints to be non-localized in order to impart a capability of printing a given circuit with a process window beyond the process windows which are attainable with conventional simplified design rules. Pursuant to the method and system, lithographic capability and process windows are maximized to satisfy local circuit requirements and in order to achieve a maximally efficient layout. In this connection, there is employed a method utilizing a generalized lithographic process window as a measure when layout optimization is extended to a degree beyond that achieved by the simple fixed design rules which are applied to the design rules obtained is the advantage that a lithographic process window is determined purely through the calculation of image intensities and slopes, and as a result, the method can be quite rapid in application because it is possible to take advantage of known methods for rapid calculation of image intensity, and because there is obviated the need for geometrical shape processing during optimization.

Lithographic process window optimization under complex constraints on edge placement

A method and system is provided for computing lithographic images that may take into account non-scalar effects such as lens birefringence, resist stack effects, tailored source polarizations, and blur effects of the mask and the resist. A generalized bilinear kernel is formed, which is independent of the mask transmission function, and which may then be treated using a decomposition to allow rapid computation of an image that includes such non-scalar effects. Weighted pre-images may be formed from a coherent sum of pre-computed convolutions of the dominant eigenfunctions of the generalized bilinear kernel with the appropriate mask polygon sectors. The image at a point may be formed from the incoherent sum of the weighted pre-images over all of the dominant eigenfunctions of the generalized bilinear kernel. The resulting image can then be used to perform model-based optical proximity correction (MBOPC).

Fast model-based optical proximity correction

A reticle has a transparent substrate, mask shapes on the substrate, a transparent material covering the mask shapes and an optional anti-reflective material over the transparent material.

Planar reticle design/fabrication method for rapid inspection and cleaning

A method is described for determining lens aberrations using a test reticle and a standard metrology tool. The method provides test patterns, preferably in the form of standard overlay metrology test patterns, that include blazed gratings having orientation and pitch selected to sample desired portions of the lens pupil. The method measures relative shifts in the imaged test patterns using standard metrology tools to provide both magnitude and sign of the aberrations. The metrology tools need not be modified if standard test patterns are used, but can be adapted to obtain additional information. The test reticles may be formed with multiple test patterns having a range of orientations and pitch in order to compute any desired order of lens aberration. Alternatively, single test patterns may be used to determine both the magnitude and sign of lower order lens aberrations, such as defocus or coma.

Phase shifted test pattern for monitoring focus and aberrations in optical projection systems

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Wappingers Falls, NY, United States of America

Nakgeuon Seong