Design-process integration for performance-based OPC framework

Along the continued shrinking of critical dimension (CD), the optical proximity correction (OPC) scheme inevitably becomes more aggressive and results in greater mask complexity and cost. Conventional OPC are edge-placement-error (EPE) driven without considering the effect of correction on circuit performance at all. We propose a performance-based OPC (PB- OPC) framework that employs a much simpler mask correction algorithm based on the real-time estimated device performances. When compared to the conventional OPC approach, our PB-OPC achieved 33 to 93% reduction in mask MEBES size and closer circuit performance matching to the design intent.