Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Binarization method and freeform mask optimization flow
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Application No.: US16967789Application Date: 2019-02-15
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Publication No.: US10990003B2Publication Date: 2021-04-27
- Inventor: Duan-Fu Stephen Hsu , Jingjing Liu , Rafael C. Howell , Xingyue Peng
- Applicant: ASML NETHERLANDS B.V.
- Applicant Address: NL Veldhoven
- Assignee: ASML NETHERLANDS B.V.
- Current Assignee: ASML NETHERLANDS B.V.
- Current Assignee Address: NL Veldhoven
- Agency: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
- International Application: PCT/EP2019/053785 WO 20190215
- International Announcement: WO2019/158682 WO 20190822
- Main IPC: G03F1/70
- IPC: G03F1/70 ; G06F30/398 ; G03F1/36

Abstract:
A method to determine a mask pattern for a patterning device. The method includes obtaining a target pattern to be printed on a substrate, an initial continuous tone image corresponding to the target pattern, a binarization function (e.g., a sigmoid, an arctan, a step function, etc.) configured to transform the initial continuous tone image, and a process model configured to predict a pattern on the substrate from an output of the binarization function; and generating a binarized image having a mask pattern corresponding to the initial continuous tone image by iteratively updating the initial continuous tone image based on a cost function such that the cost function is reduced. The cost function (e.g., EPE) determines a difference between a predicted pattern determined by the process model and the target pattern.
Information query
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