An Agile Mask Data Preparation and Writer Dispatching Approach

An agile mask data preparation (MDP) approach was proposed to cut re-fracture cycle time as incurred by mask writer dispatching policy changes. Shorter re-fracture cycle time increases the flexibility of mask writer dispatching, as a result, mask writer's capacity can be utilized to its optimum. Preliminary results demonstrate promising benefits in MDP cycle time reduction and writer dispatching flexibility improvement. The agile MDP can save up to 40% of re-fracture cycle time. OASIS (Open Artwork System Interchange Standard) was proposed to address the GDSII file size explosion problem. However, OASIS as yet gains wide acceptance by the mask industry. We envision OASIS adoption by the mask industry as a three-phase process and identify key issues of each phase from the mask manufacturer's perspective. As a long-term MDP flow reengineering project, we proposed an agile MDP and writer dispatching approach based on OASIS. We also have done an extensive evaluation on OASIS performance compared to that of GDSII, both original GDSII and post-OPC GDSII files. The file size of 80% of the original GDSII files is ten times or more compared to that of its OASIS counterpart.