Cut redistribution and DSA template assignment for unidirectional design

Abstract

Wth shrinking transistors in advanced circuit designs, directed self-assembly (DSA) is considered as one of the most promising techniques for cut patterning in 1-D grided design, due to its low cost and high-manufacturing throughput. In this paper, we consider the cut redistribution and DSA template assignment problem. For a given layout, we first convert the problem to a weighted gap conflict graph. Then, a minimum weighted vertex-disjoint-path cover algorithm is proposed to divide the graph into a set of paths. Finally, for each path, a dynamic programming algorithm is used to minimize the conflicts number and the total wire cost. In particular, the dynamic programming algorithm can guarantee the optimal conflicts number. Experimental results show that our proposed method can obtain free-conflict results for all benchmarks, and achieve the best wire cost, i.e., 34.7% less than a state-of-the-art work.