US 2015/0040082 A1Published application

Layout decomposition method

AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comapny, Ltd.

InventorsWen-Chun HUANG, Ming-Hui CHIH, Chia-Ping CHIANG, Ru-Gun LIU, Tsai-Sheng GAU, Jia-Guei JOU, Chih-Chung HUANG, Dong-Hsu CHENG, Yung-Pei CHIN

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Abstract

A method of assigning layout patterns includes identifying a first set of layout patterns of a current layout design that is new or has been modified in comparison with a reference layout design. A second set of layout patterns of the current layout design is identified. A member of the second set of layout patterns that is not a member of the first set of layout patterns has a distance, less than a predetermined threshold distance, to at least another member of the second set of layout patterns. A third set of layout patterns is not modified in comparison with the reference layout design. The third set of layout patterns is assigned to a plurality of masks according to the reference pattern-assigning result.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method of assigning layout patterns of a current layout design for an integrated circuit to a plurality of masks, the method comprising:

identifying a first set of layout patterns among the layout patterns of the current layout design that is new or has been modified in comparison with a reference layout design;
identifying a second set of layout patterns among the layout patterns of the current layout design, the second set of layout patterns including the first set of layout patterns and wherein a member of the second set of layout patterns that is not a member of the first set of layout patterns has a distance, less than a predetermined threshold distance, to at least another member of the second set of layout patterns;
and
assigning a third set of layout patterns among the layout patterns of the current layout design to the plurality of masks according to a reference pattern-assigning result of the reference layout design, the third set of layout patterns being not modified in comparison with the reference layout design,
wherein at least one of the identifying a first set, identifying a second set, or assigning a third set is performed by using a hardware processor.

2 more elements

An integrated circuit designing system, comprising:

a non-transitory storage medium encoded with a set of instructions;
a hardware processor communicatively coupled with the non-transitory storage medium and configured to execute the set of instructions to:
identify a first set of layout patterns among layout patterns of a current layout design that is new or has been modified in comparison with a reference layout design;
identify a second set of layout patterns among the layout patterns of the current layout design, the second set of layout patterns including the first set of layout patterns and wherein a member of the second set of layout patterns that is not a member of the first set of layout patterns has a distance, less than a predetermined threshold distance, to at least another member of the second set of layout patterns;
and
assign a third set of layout patterns among the layout patterns of the current layout design to a plurality of masks according to a reference pattern-assigning result of the reference layout design, the third set of layout patterns being not modified in comparison with the reference layout design.

3 more elements

A non-transitory storage medium encoded with a set of instructions, the set of instructions is configured to cause a hardware processor to perform a method comprising:

identifying a first set of layout patterns among layout patterns of a current layout design that is new or has been modified in comparison with a reference layout design;
identifying a second set of layout patterns among the layout patterns of the current layout design, the second set of layout patterns including the first set of layout patterns and wherein a member of the second set of layout patterns that is not a member of the first set of layout patterns has a distance, less than a predetermined threshold distance, to at least another member of the second set of layout patterns;
and
assigning a third set of layout patterns among the layout patterns of the current layout design to a plurality of masks according to a reference pattern-assigning result of the reference layout design, the third set of layout patterns not being modified in comparison with the reference layout design.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.