Reduction of MDP time through the improvement of verification method

The low-k1 lithography produces large volumes of mask data resulting in more complex optical proximity effect. It puts heavy burden on MDP flow and affects turn around time (TAT). To solve this problem, DP (Distributed Processing) method has been introduced. Even though DP is a very powerful tool to reduce the MDP time, there still might be unexpected pattern drop issue. In order to deal with this issue, the verification step was added in MDP flow. The present verification method is a boolean operation using 2 machine data after converting as a same way. However this verification method has two shortcomings. First, this method is not suitable to detect the same error caused by same software bug. Secondly, it needs double conversion time. A new verification method should be much faster and more accurate than the current verification method. In this paper, the new verification method will be discussed and experimental results using the new verification method will be shown with comparing to the old verification method.