Sciweavers

ICIP
2010
IEEE

Stochastic gradient descent for robust inverse photomask synthesis in optical lithography

13 years 1 months ago
Stochastic gradient descent for robust inverse photomask synthesis in optical lithography
Optical lithography is a critical step in the semiconductor manufacturing process, and one key problem is the design of the photomask for a particular circuit pattern, given the optical aberrations and diffraction effects associated with the small feature size. Inverse lithography synthesizes an optimal mask by treating the design as an image synthesis inverse problem. To date, much effort is dedicated to solving it for some nominal process conditions. However, the small feature size also suggests that the effect of process variations is more pronounced. In this paper, we design a mask that is robust against focus variations within the inverse lithography framework. Each iteration involves more computation than a similar method designed for the nominal conditions, but we simplify the task by using stochastic gradient descent, which is a technique from machine learning. Simulation shows that the proposed algorithm is effective in producing robust masks.
Ningning Jia, Edmund Y. Lam
Added 12 Feb 2011
Updated 12 Feb 2011
Type Journal
Year 2010
Where ICIP
Authors Ningning Jia, Edmund Y. Lam
Comments (0)