The Use of the Manufacturing Sensitivity Model Forms to Comprehend Layout Manufacturing Robustness For Use During Device Design

As semiconductor device manufacturing processes are reducing feature sizes ever smaller, the manufacturing processes are becoming ever more complex. This complexity is having significant impacts on data communications between device design teams and manufacturing process teams. With current manufacturing process constraints, the constraints placed on a design team are difficult to conceptualize, communicate and enforce. This study describes a new type of process model, referred to as a Focus Sensitivity Model that is capable of speeding up the model based analysis of design patterns for manufacturing robustness. The FSM is a difference model based on the photolithography process model. The FSM produces information about multiple process states in one pass. It also produces interpreted data, which removes the need to understand the performance of individual process states. Finally, FSM is capable of analyzing drawn patterns without optical proximity correction applied to determine pattern manufacturability.