An instruction-based high-throughput lossless decompression algorithm for e-beam direct-write system

About 13-Terabyte data for Massive e-beam direct-write lithography (MEBDW) system, a potential solution for highvolume manufacturing (HVM) of 10-nm and beyond technology nodes in a 26 mm x 33 mm field of layout, is required. Therefore cost reduction on data storage and transmission through development of high compression rate of lossless data and high throughput real time decompression algorithms is necessary. In this paper, an instruction-based hybrid method (IBHM) is proposed. It is an asymmetric scheme to hybrid simple compression methods. The decompression is achieved by instruction-based decoding. The input layout image is partitioned into different fragments, compressed and encoded into instructions. On the MEBDW system side, the encoded bit-stream is decoded by the IBHM decoder. The function of this decoder is to execute only a minimal number of simple instructions, thus the decoder can be implemented with low gate-count on ASIC. Simulation results show that a single IBHM decoder is capable of providing an output data rate as high as ~50 Gbps in various masking layers.