Load balancing using DP management server for commercial MDP software

Mask data volume is dramatically increasing by using RET like OPC due to scaling design rule. This has become a burden to MDP and a barrier to TAT. Mask manufacturers have been making various efforts to solve this problem. Although Distribute processing (DP) is one of effective solutions, there remain some limitations: DP needs a lot of CPUs and software license copies, and its management is not efficient at all. Most of well-known mask data preparation (MDP) commercial software require different licenses to each format. Besides, they have no management function to deal with the entire distribute processing system, on account of which user's DP system is not in a fully dynamic state. Those who use commercial MDP software set up their DP system with CPUs fixed by the number of licenses. If user has only one license, this problem does not happen. However, most MDP users have more than one license. If a user wants the DP state which is fully dynamic, he must always consider both the number of licenses and that of available CPUs. This is reason why we have made a DP management server which allocate MDP software to CPUs. It can prevent the loss of CPU time and automate data flow. It's operation is not complicated; effect is powerful. In this paper, we will show advantages in using DP management server and different from other load balance tools.