Synthesis of lithography test patterns through topology-oriented pattern extraction and classification

Abstract

Comprehensive and compact test patterns are crucial to the development of new semiconductor technology. In particular, the random nature of routing layers tends to create many hotspots, corresponding to patterns which are difficult to predict. Conventional group of test patterns consists of parametric typical patterns and real layout clips, which contain a lot of redundancy. The paper addresses a problem of generating comprehensive yet compact group of test patterns for random routing layers. A new method of pattern extraction and classification is proposed to solve the problem.