An efficient tagging point selection algorithm to facilitate OPC process

The rapid advance of resolution enhancement technique (RET) has driven the integrated circuits to the nanometer-scale era. Optical proximity correction (OPC) is one of the RET techniques that can be employed to reshape the mask patterns for correcting the distortion due to the optical proximity effect (OPE). In this paper, an Optical Performance Index (OPI) is proposed as an evaluation criteria for OPC performance. Also, an efficient tagging point selection algorithm is developed to facilitate the OPC process. Based on the OPI and selection algorithm, the tagging points for OPC can be easily located on either the regular patterns, e.g., rectangle or polygon, or the irregular patterns such as convex or concave patterns. Experimental results show that the quantity of storage and computing time can be dramatically reduced.