Lance Glasser

Subwavelength lithography (panel): how will it affect your design flow?

In the sub 0.25 micron regime, IC feature sizes become smaller than the wavelength of light used for silicon exposure. Resulta nt light distortions create patterns on silicon that are substantially different from a GDSII layout. Although light distortions have t raditionally not affected the design flow, the techniques used to control these distortions have a potential impact on the design flow that is a s formidable as the recently addressed Deep Sub-Micron transition. This session will discuss the design implications arising from techniques u sed to control sub-wavelength lithography. It will begin with an embedded tutorial on subwavelength mask design techniques and their resultant effect on the IC design process. The panel will then debate the extent of the resulting impact on IC performance, design flow, and CAD tools.