Paper
20 October 2006 Minimizing yield-loss risks through post-OPC verification
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
In our continued pursuit to keep up with Moor's Law we are encountering lower and lower k1 factors resulting in increased sensitivity to lithography / OPC un-friendly designs, mask rule constraints and OPC setup file errors such as bad fragmentation, sub-optimal site placement, and poor convergence during the OPC application process. While the process has become evermore sensitive and more vulnerable to yield loss, the incurred costs associated with such losses is continuing to increase in the form of higher reticle costs, longer cycle times for learning, increased costs associated with the lithography tools, and most importantly lost revenue due to bringing a product to market late. This has resulted in an increased need for virtual manufacturing tools that are capable of accurately simulating the lithography process and detecting failures and weak points in the layout so they can be resolved before committing a layout to silicon and / or identified for inline monitoring during the wafer manufacturing process. This paper will attempt to outline a verification flow that is employed in a high volume manufacturing environment to identify, prevent, monitor and resolve critical lithography failures and yield inhibitors thereby minimizing how much we succumb to the aforementioned semiconductor manufacturing vulnerabilities.
© (2006) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Ching-Heng Wang, Qingwei Liu, Liguo Zhang, Gen-Sheng Gao, Travis E. Brist, Tom Donnelly, and Shumay Shang "Minimizing yield-loss risks through post-OPC verification", Proc. SPIE 6349, Photomask Technology 2006, 63494N (20 October 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.686585
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KEYWORDS
Manufacturing

Optical proximity correction

Lithography

Photomasks

Semiconducting wafers

Critical dimension metrology

Scanning electron microscopy

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