Design for manufacturability

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for modifying an existing microdevice design to improve its manufacturability. With these techniques, a designer receives manufacturing criteria associated with data in a design. The associated design data then is identified and provided to the microdevice designer, who may choose to modify the design based upon the manufacturing criteria. In this manner, the designer can directly incorporate manufacturing criteria from the foundry in the original design of the microdevice.

Description

[0001] This application claims priority to and is a continuation-in-part of provisional U.S. Application No. 60 / 488,363, filed Jul. 18, 2003, entitled “Techniques For Maximizing Yield In Nanometer Designs,” naming John Ferguson et al. as inventors, which application is incorporated entirely herein by reference. This application also claims priority to and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 827,990, filed Apr. 19, 2004, entitled “Design For Manufacturability,” naming Joseph Sawicki et al. as inventors, which application also is incorporated entirely herein by reference. Still further, this application claims priority to and is a continuation-in-part of International PCT Patent Application No. PCT / US2004 / 22831, filed Jul. 16, 2004, entitled “Design For Manfacturability,” naming Joseph Sawicki et al. as inventors, which application also is incorporated entirely herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to various techn...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] Advantageously, various examples of the invention provide techniques for modifying an existing microdevice design to improve its manufacturability. The manufacturing improvements may be directed toward an improved yield in manufacturing the microdevices, better operating performance, lower costs for manufacturing the microdevice, or a combination of two or more of these features. According to different examples of the invention, a designer receives manufacturing criteria or process information associated with data in a design, which are stored in a statistical database. The design data associated with particular aspects of the manufacturing criteria are then identified and provided to the microdevice designer, who may choose to modify the design based upon the manufacturing criteria. In this manner, the designer can directly incorporate manufacturing criteria from the foundry in the original design of the microdevice.

Problems solved by technology

As microdevices become more complex, they also become more difficult to design.

A conventional microcircuit device, for example, may have many millions of connections, and each connection may cause the microcircuit to operate incorrectly or even fail if the connection is not properly designated.

Thus, if a single via is not manufactured correctly, its redundant via may still form the desired connection.

Also, the additional metal required to form a redundant via may change the capacitance of the surrounding circuit.

If the timing of that circuit is critical, adding a redundant via may cause more problems than it would solve.

While microdevice designs can be modified for improved manufacturability, these modifications are not typically available to the microdevice designer during the design process.

Some characteristics of a microdevice design will facilitate the fab to implement these modifications, but other design characteristics may hinder the implementation of these modifications.

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