Method of product performance improvement by selective feature sizing of semiconductor devices

Abstract

Device features, such as gate lengths and channel widths, are selectively altered by first identifying those devices within a semiconductor die that exhibit physical attributes, e.g., leakage current and threshold voltage magnitude, that are different than previously verified by a design/simulation tool used to design the devices. The identified, non-conforming devices are then further identified by the amount of deviation from the original design goal that is exhibited by each non-conforming device. The non-conforming devices are then mathematically categorized into bins, where each bin is tagged with a magnitude of deviation from a design goal. The mask layers defining the features of the non-conforming devices are then selectively modified by an amount that is commensurate with the tagged deviation. The selectively modified mask layers are then used to generate a new semiconductor die that exhibits improved performance.