A graph theoretic framework for double patterning lithographic layout decomposition

Double patterning lithography (DPL) has evolved as the most hopeful next generation technology according to ITRS roadmap. The main objective of this technology is to decompose the entire layout and placing the layout on each layer onto two masks with balanced density. This technology basically enables us to place two different features into two different masks when there are at a distance less than pre-defined threshold value. In this paper, we formulate the DPL decomposition problem as a graph theoretic problem. Without using any heuristic function, we proposed a solution with the help of dual graph. This technique not only gives us a new method of solution of DPL problem but also maintains a high balanced density. Experiment demonstrated that we achieved great performance on resolving conflicts with high balanced density.