Cellwise OPC Based on Reduced Standard Cell Library

Abstract

As critical dimensions (CDs) of integrated circuit (IC) continue to scale down, subwavelength lithography has become the mainstream of chip manufacture. Various resolution enhancement techniques (RETs) such as the popular model-based optical proximity correction (OPC) have become an indispensable part of mask data preparation. However, traditional full-chip OPC will lead to mask data explosion and prohibitive runtime. In this paper, we propose a novel kind of cellwise OPC which can reuse the results of standard-cell-based OPC. To achieve this goal, we construct a reduced standard cell library composed of merely three kinds of basic cells, which have the same size and can realize all logics of traditional standard cell library. This library is manufacture-friendly, and reuse of its OPC results can improve the efficiency of chip manufacture greatly and significantly reduce the need for large storage. The electrical simulation results of the library on several benchmark circuits also show that its overhead of area, delay, as well as power is quite minor or even competitive compared with traditional standard cell library.