Mask-Aware Routing for Semiconductor Metal Layers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current multiple patterning technologies for metal routing layers, such as SADP and SAQP, require separate post-routing tools for cut mask generation, leading to design rule check errors, complex mask geometries, and iterative design processes, which delay design closure and complicate manufacturing.
Innovation Solution
A cut-mask-aware routing method that lays out continuous metal lines and inserts cut masks to generate signal lines, with the remaining lines forming dummy lines, while ensuring compliance with cut mask design rules and accounting for timing delays, eliminating the need for additional post-routing tools.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If separate post-routing tools are used to generate cut masks, then mask design rule compliance can be checked, but design closure is delayed due to iterative design processes
Solution Approach 1:
The routing tool is enhanced to incorporate cut mask design rule awareness during the routing process itself, rather than checking compliance afterward. This preliminary integration allows the tool to proactively generate routing solutions that satisfy both metal line design rules and cut mask design rules, eliminating the need for iterative post-routing decomposition and compliance checking.
Solution Approach 2:
The functionality of the routing tool and the cut mask decomposition tool is merged into a single integrated system. The routing tool now simultaneously performs routing and cut mask generation, combining what were previously separate sequential steps into one unified process that achieves both routing objectives and mask compliance in a single pass.
2Productivity
If routing tools generate metal routing layers without awareness of cut masks, then routing can be completed quickly, but complex mask geometries are produced that are prohibitively complex for manufacturing
Solution Approach 1:
The routing tool is equipped with cut mask design rule awareness before generating the routing layer. This preliminary knowledge allows the tool to make routing decisions that inherently produce simpler, more manufacturable mask geometries, rather than generating complex geometries that require subsequent simplification or decomposition.
Solution Approach 2:
The routing tool incorporates cut mask design rules as additional constraints and parameters during the routing optimization process. By changing the parameter set to include mask-related design rules, the tool generates routing solutions that are optimized for both electrical performance and manufacturing ease, producing simpler mask geometries without sacrificing routing efficiency.
3Ease of manufacture
If additional post-routing tools are used to optimize cut masks, then mask complexity is reduced, but the design flow becomes more complex and requires extending metal lines and adding dummy fill
Solution Approach 1:
The routing tool and cut mask optimization functionality are merged into a single integrated system. The routing tool simultaneously performs routing, cut mask generation, and mask optimization in one unified process, eliminating the need for separate post-routing decomposition and optimization tools, and avoiding the need to extend metal lines or add dummy fill as separate steps.
Solution Approach 2:
The routing tool performs cut mask optimization during the routing process itself, rather than as a subsequent separate step. This preliminary optimization ensures that mask geometries are simplified and made manufacturable while the routing is being generated, avoiding the need for later modifications to metal lines or addition of dummy fill.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods for routing a metal routing layer based on mask design rules and the resulting devices are disclosed. Embodiments may include laying-out continuous metal lines in a semiconductor design layout, and routing, by a processor, a metal routing layer using the continuous metal lines according to placement of cut or block masks based on cut or block mask design rules.