Photomask technology for the most advanced nodes is transitioning from traditional rectilinear designs towards curvilinear mask shapes, presenting several mask data preparation challenges, such as increased data complexity, longer computation times, and larger file sizes.
Traditionally, mask processing steps have been executed sequentially, but to reduce runtimes for curvilinear mask processing, engineers can use the integrated, pipelined Calibre flow. The integration works without intermediate file exchange and allows for in-memory processing to eliminate disk I/O operations. Real usage has demonstrated substantial runtime reduction for curvilinear mask processing.
Calibre provides a complete curvilinear mask data preparation solution for the new multi-beam fracture formats. The solution connects the flows for mask process correction (MPC), mask data preparation (MDP), mask rule checks (MRC), and optical proximity correction (OPC).