Pattern Matching For Identifying And Resolving Non-Decomposition-Friendly Designs For Double Patterning Technology (Dpt)

A pattern matching methodology that identifies non-decomposition-friendly designs and provides localized guidance for layout-fixing is presented for double patterning lithography. This methodology uses a library of patterns in which each pattern has been pre-characterized as impossible-to-decompose and annotated with a design rule for guiding the layout fixes. A pattern matching engine identifies these problematic patterns in design, which allows the layout designers to anticipate and prevent decomposition errors, prior to layout decomposition. The methodology has been demonstrated on a 180 um(2) layout migrated from the previous 28nm technology node for the metal 1 layer. Using a small library of just 18 patterns, the pattern matching engine identified 119 out of 400 decomposition errors, which constituted coverage of 29.8%.