Patent Application
20080128637
1. Field
The field of the present invention relates to particle beam lithography and, in particular, to logic design for cell projection particle beam lithography.
2. Description of Related Art
In today's semiconductor manufacturing process, optical lithography using photomasks is commonly used. However, mask cost, which is rapidly growing with shrinking feature size is becoming a serious problem for semiconductor manufacturing. To solve this issue, various approaches that do not use a photomask, such as ML2 (Mask less lithography), have been proposed. One of the promising approaches among various ML2 is electron beam direct writing (EBDW). However, the problem with this approach has been its relatively low throughput, which hindered its use for volume production. Thus, EBDW has been applied only for research and for interconnect layers of production ASICs.
To reduce writing time of EB, a cell projection (CP) technique has been proposed, which uses a stencil mask that contains cell patterns and enables a cell pattern drawn by one shot, which reduces overall writing time compared to conventional VSB (Variable Shape Beam) method.
A conventional VSB machine usually uses relatively simple patterns as the apertures 110 of stencil mask 112 to form rectangular or triangular shapes with variable sizes and project them on a surface wafer or substrate 116, and chip patterns 114 on the wafer 116 are formed by combination of those simple rectangular or triangular shapes. On the other hand, in the case of cell projection, the stencil mask 112 may include more complex patterns as apertures 110 of the stencil mask 112. Each aperture pattern 110 can be any complex pattern of 10×10 um2 in size, as an example. Typical examples of such patterns contained on stencil masks are patterns of standard cell library entities such as logic gates or flip-flops.
However, the problem of CP is the limitation of number of cells that can be contained in one stencil mask. Since the cell library of ASICs usually has 300 to 500 cells and the stencil mask should contain all the necessary orientations of each cell, all the cell patterns needed cannot be accommodated on the stencil mask. The limited cell number on the stencil results in the case that only a part of cells used in the IC chip can be drawn with CP, which results in a limited throughput improvement.
Referring to
In the course of this logic synthesis process 320, a set of parameters and constraints are used for optimization. Commonly used parameters and constraints include delay (timing information), power consumption, and area (physical size). After layout design 340, in the case of cell projection EB, a stencil mask 354 for CP is designed 350 and fabricated 352. In designing the stencil mask, frequently used cell patterns are included in the stencil as much as possible to reduce the EB writing time. Then, the layout design 340 and stencil design 350 are used for EB data preparation 360, and EB data 362 therefrom is used along with the stencil 354 to EB write and fabricate 370 the logic circuit 330 according to the layout design 340 on a wafer or substrate 380. This flow of LSI design and stencil design has been commonly applied for EB writing.
However, due to stencil capacity limitation, a substantial number of cells cannot be included in the stencil, which must be drawn by VSB. Thus, writing time reduction by CP is limited. This is because no consideration on writing time is given during logic design process in the conventional design flow 300.
There currently exists a need to improve logic design for cell projection (CP) electron beam (EB) lithography.
This invention is related to a method and system for logic design of integrated circuits to be manufactured by the cell projection (CP) electron beam (EB) lithography, which is a form of particle beam lithography. One feature of this logic design method is to take into account the stencil information, which affects EB writing time, to optimize the logic circuit. One application of this method is for the case that the stencil is pre-designed, and logic design is optimized or at least improved using the stencil information, such as which cells are included in the stencil. Another application is for the case that the stencil is not pre-designed and the logic circuit, and then stencil, are optimally designed so as to minimize or at least reduce the writing time, considering the restrictions related to the stencil and the shot count by CP and VSB. In either case, short EB writing time is realized while the circuit functionality is the same.
This invention may be applied to any type of particle beam lithography technologies, including electron beam (EB) lithography, optical laser beam lithography and X-ray beam lithography, which transcribe patterns using at least two apertures (stencil masks) and source of particle beams, such as optical laser beam and X-ray beam, as well as electron beam lithography.
In one embodiment, a method and system for particle beam lithography include predefining a cell library having a plurality of cell patterns associated with characteristic parameters of a cell, predefining a stencil mask for Cell Projection (CP) having the plurality of cell patterns with information from the cell library, adding stencil information which relates to particle beam lithography of each cell for the stencil mask to the cell library, fabricating the stencil mask, synthesizing and optimizing a logic circuit from a given functional description and constraints, considering the stencil information that relates to particle beam lithography, generating a layout design from the optimized logic circuit design, and forming the logic circuit on a substrate using the layout design and stencil mask by the Cell Projection (CP) particle beam lithography.
In one embodiment, a method and system for particle beam lithography include predefining a cell library having a plurality of cell patterns associated with characteristic parameters of a cell, predefining a stencil mask for Cell Projection (CP) having the plurality of cell patterns with information from a cell library, adding stencil information which relates to particle beam lithography of each cell for the stencil mask to the cell library, fabricating the stencil mask, synthesizing and optimizing a logic circuit from a functional description and constraints, considering the stencil information that relates to particle beam lithography, as a first optimization process, execute a timing analysis of the logic circuit, improving the logic circuit design by iteratively replacing cells to solve, or reduce, the problems which were found by above analysis, as a second optimization process, generating a layout design from the optimized logic circuit design, and forming the logic circuit on a substrate using the layout design and stencil mask by Cell Projection (CP) particle beam lithography.
In one embodiment, a method and system for particle beam lithography include predefining a cell library having a plurality of cell patterns associated with characteristic parameters of a cell, predefining a stencil mask for Cell Projection (CP) having the plurality of cell patterns with information from the cell library, adding stencil information which relates to particle beam lithography of each cell for the stencil mask to the cell library, fabricating the stencil mask, synthesizing a logic circuit from a functional description and constraints in accordance with a logical component of the cell library without considering the stencil information, optimally mapping the logical cells in the circuit to corresponding physical cell implementation, which includes stencil information, generating a layout design from the optimized logic circuit design, and forming the logic circuit on a substrate using the layout design and the stencil mask by the Cell Projection (CP) particle beam lithography.
In one embodiment, a method and system for particle beam lithography include predefining a cell library having a plurality of cell patterns associated with characteristic parameters of a cell, adding stencil restriction information which is needed to design a stencil mask for particle beam lithography to the cell library, defining ‘Write Time Reduction Efficiency’ for each cell, which reflects the difference of write time for the case of written by Cell Projection (CP) and for the case of written by variable shaped beam (VSB) methods, and adding to the cell library, synthesizing and optimizing a logic circuit from a given functional description and constraints, considering Write Time Reduction Efficiency, designing a stencil mask by selecting cell patterns to be included in the stencil mask under the given stencil mask restriction information, considering overall write time reduction efficiency of the stencil mask, fabricating the stencil mask, synthesizing and optimizing the logic circuit again from a functional description and constraints, considering the stencil information, generating a layout design from the optimized logic circuit design, and forming the logic circuit on a substrate using the layout design and the stencil mask by the Cell Projection (CP) lithography.
In one embodiment, a data file for a cell library includes a plurality of cell patterns associated with characteristic parameters of a cell and stencil information which relates to particle beam lithography of each cell for a stencil mask to the cell library.
In one embodiment, a computer program product for synthesizing and optimizing a logic circuit from a given functional description and constraints, considering the stencil information that relates to particle beam lithography.
This invention introduces a ‘Write Time Figure’ which reflects the particle beam writing time of each cell as a parameter or constraint for optimization of the logic synthesis tool. Thus, the optimum solution in terms of writing time can be obtained by the characteristics of logic synthesis algorithm.
In one embodiment, a data file for a cell library includes a plurality of cell patterns associated with characteristic parameters of a cell and stencil restriction information which is needed to design a stencil mask for particle beam lithography to the cell library.
In one embodiment, a software program for synthesizing and optimizing a logic circuit from a given functional description and constraints, considering stencil restriction information which is needed to design a stencil mask for particle beam lithography.
This invention introduces a ‘Write Reduction Efficiency’ (WTRE) which reflects the difference of write time for the case of Cell Projection (CP) and Variable Shaped Beam (VSB) as a parameter or constraint for optimization of logic synthesis tool. Thus optimum solution in terms of writing time reduction using cell projection can be obtained.
These and other objects and advantages of the present teachings will become more fully apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Various embodiments of the invention are described herein with reference to the drawings. It should be noted that the drawings are not drawn to scale and that elements of similar structures or functions are represented by like reference numerals throughout the drawings.
The following discussion mainly describes on EB direct writing (EBDW) as an application of particle beam lithography and should not be limited to only EB direct writing (EBDW), but the this invention can be applied to mask writing using an electron beam (EB) writer with cell projection (CP) capability, in a similar manner, resulting in an improved throughput.
Accordingly, it should be appreciated that this invention may also be applied to other drawing technologies with transcribed patterns using at least two apertures (stencil masks) and using other types of particle beams other than an electron beam (EB), such as an optical (light) laser beam, an X-ray beam or any other particle beams that run straight and stimulate a sensitive material (resist) layer to form patterns on a substrate.
This invention provides a method for logic design of integrated circuits that enables to greatly reduce the particle beam, such as electron beam (EB), writing time using cell projection (CP). The logic design method of this invention takes into account new information, or parameters, that affect particle beam writing time, to the process of logic optimization.
It should be appreciated that this invention is related to the method for optimal design in the sense that the writing time be at a minimum by considering, for example, the characteristics of particle beam writing and restrictions from the stencil. Also, this invention provides the method of optimally designing stencils which provide short design times for most of circuits.
Some conventional ideas have been provided to reduce the number of cells needed to draw LSI chip patterns to reduce particle beam writing time. However, most of the conventional methods do not consider particle beam writing time in the stage of logic design, but only some modifications are done in later stages in order to reduce number of cell patterns which are drawn by CP.
In contrast, the invention optimizes the logic circuit using the ‘Write Time Figure’, which reflects particle beam writing time of each cell as the optimization parameter or constraints of logic synthesis. So, this invention is superior to conventional methods in the level of writing time improvement.
An innovative point of this invention is to enable optimum design of logic circuits by taking into account not only the restrictions of stencil mask but also the shot count number, or writing time, of cells which are to be written by CP or by VSB, thus resulting in the minimum particle beam writing time. Another innovative point is that the stencil mask is defined before the logic design so that it provides shortest particle beam writing time compared to the previous method, where the logic circuit is designed independent from stencil. This invention can also be applied to designing a universally optimum stencil.
This invention includes a number of variations as follows, by the combination of whether the stencil is pre-designed or not, limitations from the stencil design, and the timing of logic optimization.
Referring to
In one embodiment of method 400, a stencil 454 is designed 450 so that it includes frequently used cell patterns which can be drawn by CP. Other cells which are not included in the stencil have to be drawn by VSB.
In process 400, logic synthesis 420 is utilized as a technique for optimally designing logic circuits, which starts with a functional description 410, such as in RTL (Register Transfer Level) description and various constraints 412 for the logic circuit design. The functional description 410 is transformed into a logic circuit 430 by a logic transformation 422 and then converted by technology mapping 424 to the final logic circuit 430 which consists of cell entities of a given cell library 404, which is pre-designed for a given process technology, and comprises stencil and writing time information along with a set of cells that have implementation details such as layout pattern and performance data. The layout design 440 and stencil design 450 are used for EB data preparation 460, and EB data 462 therefrom is used along with the stencil 454 to EB write and fabricate 470 the logic circuit 430 according to the layout design 440 on a wafer or substrate 480.
In the course of logic synthesis 420, stencil and writing time information are used, along with other parameters and constraints, for logic optimization. The layout design 440 and cell library with stencil information 402 are used for EB data preparation 460, and EB data 462 therefrom is used along with the stencil 454 to EB write and fabricate 470 the logic circuit 430 according to the layout design 440 on a wafer or substrate 480.
In process 400, a cell library 404 is prepared to comprise a number, such as a ‘Write Time Figure’, that reflects the EB writing time for all of the layers of each cell. This ‘Write Time Figure’ is usually calculated by a linear equation of the shot counts needed to draw each layer of the cell, and the simplest case is equal to the total shot count of all layers. The shot count of a cell, which is not included in the stencil 454, is the number of fractured shapes for VSB, and the shot count of a cell, which is included in the stencil 454, is 1 or a number of CP shots if the cell pattern is drawn by more than one cell projection shot.
However, in one aspect, the ‘Write Time Figure’ can be any function of the shot counts of each layer of the cells. Moreover, in another aspect, if only some layers are to be drawn by CP EBDW, only shot counts of those layers can be taken into account.
In one aspect, using such cell library 404, logic synthesis 420 is carried out under the condition that the summation of ‘Write Time Figures’ of all cells in the circuit comprise a minimum. In other words, the summation of ‘Write Time Figures’ is used as the cost function of the logic optimization. This cost function for logic synthesis 420 is not limited to the summation of ‘Write Time Figures’ but can be any function of ‘Write Time Figures’ of all cells in the circuit.
As a special case of above method, logic synthesis 420 can be done using only the cells that are included in the stencil 454. In this case, the circuit is composed with cells which can be drawn by CP. In one aspect, this case is equivalent to a special case that the cells, which are not included in the stencil, have the infinitive, or large enough value, of the ‘Write Time Figure’.
In the method 400 above, other parameters for logic optimization, such as delay, power and area, or any subset thereof, can be used in combination with the ‘Write Time Figure’. Those parameters can be used not only as the parameter to optimize but also as the constraints for optimization. For example, a logic synthesis may be done to minimize the ‘Write Time Figure’ and area, in order of priority, and under given constraints of circuit timing. In one aspect, detailed types of optimization parameters and constraints, and the way of specifying them depend on the specification of the logic synthesis tools used.
Referring to
Referring to
In the method 600, a logic optimization process 624 can be divided into two or more steps, and some part of the optimization process can be done in later design stages by an iterative improvement method 634. For example, logic synthesis 620, as the first optimization step, may be done using only the ‘Write Time Figure’ to optimize in technology mapping, and the timing problematic paths may be found using a circuit timing analysis tool 632. Then, a second optimization process of iterative improvement 634 may be carried out to solve those timing problems by iteratively replacing cells on the relevant path with other functionally equivalent cells, which have less delay but may have bigger ‘Write Time Figures. This optimization step improves the circuit performance so that it meets the given timing constraints, with possible slight penalty of write time and chip area.
In one aspect, such iterative improvement 634 can be achieved in any other later stages of the chip design, such as after floor planning, after routing, or after physical verification.
Referring to
In one or more of the methods described above, it may be supposed that a logic circuit is not changed after the logic design until EB writing for manufacturing. However, it should be appreciated that in actual LSI development, some cells in the circuit, or circuit connectivity itself, may be changed manually by some reason after logic design, or even after layout design. Also, in other case the design is done manually, without using logic synthesis tools, In such cases, similar method and criteria can be applied to select the new set of cells for the change so as to minimize the EB writing time.
In one embodiment, this invention can also be applied to the case that the stencil mask is not defined before the logic design and that provides the method to optimally design the logic circuit, and then, optimally design the stencil mask so that EB writing time using Cell Projection becomes minimum, as shown in
In one embodiment, referring to
In one aspect, under the condition that such parameters associated with each cell are stored in the cell library 404, and a maximum capacity of the stencil mask, such as a maximum number of cell patterns or a maximum total area of cell patterns are given, the method 800 to design an optimum circuit 842 and stencil mask 854 with stencil design, information and fabrication 850, 856, 852 is as follows.
In the first step (1A) for the temporary logic design, logic synthesis 820 is carried out so that the cells with larger DW(i) is used as much as possible, so as to be drawn by Cell Projection. In one aspect, a logic synthesis algorithm works to minimize parameters. To utilize this nature, the modified parameter may be used as a tool. For example; to use IW(i)=(C−DW(i)), where C is a constant that makes any IW(i) positive, or IW(i)=1/DW(i), the logic synthesis is carried out so that the total summation of IW(i) becomes minimum or so that the cells with small IW(i) are used as much as possible. If the logic synthesis tool has the capability to maximize the summation of parameters, DW(i) can be used as an optimization parameter or constraint. In one aspect, other parameters including area, timing and power may also be considered simultaneously with IW(i) or DW(i).
In one aspect, after logic synthesis 820, stencil design 850, and stencil information 850 for optimization is generated, the cell library 404 may be updated 858 with optimal stencil design and stencil information.
In the following step (2A), stencil design 850, which comprises deciding which cells are to be included in the stencil mask 854, can be achieved by the following procedure, when the maximum number of cells on a stencil mask is given as CN. In one aspect, for each cell, calculate ‘Weighted Write Time Reduction Efficiency’ (WTRE) which is defined by f(i)DW(i), where f(i) is number of instances of cell Ci in this circuit, and sort all cells by ‘Weighted WTRE’ in descending order. Select first CN cells which have highest ‘Weighted WTRE’. Those CN cells are ones which are to be included into the stencil mask 854.
In the final step (3A) for final logic design, logic synthesis 842 is carried out again by the method described in the previous processes, 400, 600 or 700 using the stencil mask information 856 defined by above step (2A).
In one aspect, it should be appreciated that the detailed algorithm to solve the problem is not limited to those described above.
In another embodiment, step (1A) above can be replaced by another ways of logic synthesis or logic design. The simplest way is to do the logic synthesis by just usual manner, which does not consider ‘Write Time Cost’, or even to use an existing, or previously designed, logic circuit without doing logic synthesis again.
In the above embodiments, only one logic circuit is considered to select the subset of cells to be written with CP. However, in another embodiment, more than one circuit implementations which meet design constraints may be created by logic synthesis 820 and utilized to obtain even more optimized solution. One example of the method for this is as follows.
In a step (1B) generate more than one logic circuit implementations with same functionality by the logic synthesis tool as described in the step (1A) above.
In a step (2B), calculate for each cell Ci of the superset a ‘Globally Weighted Write Time Reduction Efficiency’, which is defined as f(i)DW(i), where f(i) is number of instances of cell Ci in all of the logic circuits, and sort all cells by ‘Weighted WTRE’ in descending order.
In a step (3B), select the first CN cells which have highest ‘Globally Weighted Write Time Reduction Efficiency’. Those CN cells are ones which are to be included into the stencil mask 854.
In one aspect, it should be appreciated that the detailed algorithm to solve the problem is not limited to those described above.
By applying the methods described above, a universally optimum (optimum for many circuits) stencil can be designed, if more than one sample circuit for consideration. Namely, after designing an optimum subset of cells, which constitute a stencil, for each of given sample circuit by the method described above, select top CN cells which appear most frequently in all of those subsets. In one aspect, it should be appreciated that the actual algorithm to select CN cells is not limited to those described above.
In on or more of the methods described above, it may be supposed that the logic circuit and used cells are not changed after logic design until EB writing step for manufacturing. However, in the actual LSI development, some cells in the circuit or circuit connectivity itself may be changed after logic design or even after layout design. In such cases, the similar criteria, as described above, can be applied to select the new set of cells for the change so as to minimize the EB writing time.
This invention includes cell library or technology files that include stencil information and other information which affects EB writing time. Also, this invention includes the software tools or systems that enables above described methods automatically or semi-automatically.
Although particular embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, it will be understood that it is not intended to limit the invention to the preferred embodiments, and it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the invention. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than restrictive sense. The invention is intended to cover alternatives, modifications, and equivalents, which may be included within the scope of the invention as defined by the claims.
