Method and apparatus for reducing optical proximity correction output file size
US6687895B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Jul 3, 2002 |
| Grant date | Feb 3, 2004 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Aug 21, 2022 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG03F1/36
- WIPO fieldOptics
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
An approach to reducing the size of an output file generated by an optical proximity correction (OPC) process is described. An OPC output can be examined to identify identically sized segments with identical biases. Adjoining segments to those first identified to identify repeating basic shapes. Those basic shapes can be further refined and expanded as desired. Finally, the output is rewritten making use of the repeating shapes in a hierarchical output that places each shape once as a child cell of the original geometry and uses references to that shape in other locations thereby reducing data volume size. The data volume savings can be considerable.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.