Optical proximity correction and its application to CD control in high-speed microprocessors

Abstract

Feature distortion, linewidth variation, and line-end shortening in lithographic pattern transfer seriously affect circuit performance. These so-called optical proximity effects are both optical and process related. Optical proximity correction (OPC) aims at minimizing these effects by pre-distorting the patterns of the mask. In this article, we present several approaches to OPC and the application of OPC to linewidth control in patterning the gate level of microprocessors.