An Extensible Lithography Aerial Image Simulator with Improved Numerical Algorithms (ELIAS)

Introduction

As ever-smaller features are manufactured in the semiconductor industry, the manufacturing processes have to be simulated to ensure the circuit’s manufacturability. Faster and more accurate simulation of the lithography process, an important step in manufacturing, has become a key enabling technology for the industry. A great number of lithography simulation-based applications have been introduced in the design-to-manufacturing flow, which include, but are not limited to: Optical Proximity Correction (OPC), Resolution Enhancement Techniques (RET), post-OPC silicon image verification, and design rule definition. These applications are collectively called Computational Lithography (CL). Lithography simulation methods can be categorized depending on the different trade-offs between accuracy and speed. ELIAS focuses on the full chip simulation category.

Benefits:

• Extensible framework to support various lithography settings
  
• Source code distributed online to facilitate further research on lithography simulation
  Better error control
  

Market Potential/Applications: Lithography aerial image simulation and TCC simulation; semiconductor manufacturing; chip design

Contact:

University of Texas,
Austin, USA
Website : www.otc.utexas.edu