1. Technical Field
The present inventive concept is directed to an optical proximity correction modeling method and system.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In the design of an integrated circuit, to form a desired circuit on a semiconductor substrate, after creating a layout of the circuit, the layout may be transferred to the surface of a wafer through a photomask. As the design of the integrated circuit is complicated due to the high integration of semiconductor devices, a pattern layout should be correctly implemented according to the initially intended design on the photomask that is used in a photolithography process.
As the wavelength of a light source used in an exposure apparatus becomes closer to a feature size of a semiconductor device, pattern distortion may occur due to diffraction, light interference, etc. Accordingly, an optical proximity effect occurs in which a pattern shape is distorted due to the influence of an adjacent pattern or an image having a different shape from an original shape is formed on the wafer. To avoid optical proximity effects such as changes in dimension, an optical proximity correction (hereinafter, referred to as OPC) process may be performed that predicts a change in pattern dimension, and transforms the design pattern in advance to obtain a pattern shape after a pattern transfer that corresponds to a desired layout.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds