Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090146322 | METHOD OF ELIMINATING A LITHOGRAPHY OPERATION - Methods of semiconductor device fabrication are disclosed. An exemplary method includes processes of depositing a first pattern on a semiconductor substrate, wherein the first pattern defines wide and narrow spaces; depositing spacer material over the first pattern on the substrate; etching the spacer material such that the spacer material is removed from horizontal surfaces of the substrate and the first pattern but remains adjacent to vertical surfaces of a wide space defined by the first pattern and remains within narrow a space defined by the first pattern; and removing the first pattern from the substrate. In one embodiment, the first pattern can comprise sacrificial material, which can include, for example, polysilicon material. The deposition can comprise physical vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, electrochemical deposition, molecular beam epitaxy, atomic layer deposition or other deposition techniques. According to another embodiment, features for lines and logic device components having a width greater than that of the lines are formed in the spacer material in the same mask layer. | 06-11-2009 |
20090307649 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MODIFYING A DATA SET OF A PHOTOMASK - The present invention provides a method for compensating, infidelities of a process that transfers a pattern to a layer of an integrated circuit, by minimizing, with respect to a photomask pattern, a cost function that quantifies the deviation between designed and simulated values of circuit parameters of the pattern formed on a semiconductor wafer. | 12-10-2009 |
20100037200 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MODEL BASED MULTI-PATTERNING OPTIMIZATION - Some embodiments provide a method for optimally decomposing patterns within particular spatial regions of interest on a particular layer of a design layout for a multi-exposure photolithographic process. Specifically, some embodiments model the spatial region using a mathematical equation in terms of two or more intensities. Some embodiments then optimize the model across a set of feasible intensities. The optimization yields a set of intensities such that the union of the patterns created/printed from each exposure intensity most closely approximates the patterns within the particular regions. Based on the set of intensities, some embodiments then determine a decomposition solution for the patterns that satisfies design constraints of a multi-exposure photolithographic printing process. In this manner, some embodiments achieve an optimal photolithographic printing of the particular regions of interest without performing geometric rule based decomposition. | 02-11-2010 |
20110014786 | METHOD, SYSTEM, AND PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR ROUTING AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT TO BE MANUFACTURED BY DOUBLED PATTERNING - Disclosed are a method, apparatus, and program product for routing an electronic design using double patenting that is correct by construction. The layout that has been routed will by construction be designed to allow successful manufacturing with double patenting, since the router will not allow a routing configuration in the layout that cannot be successfully manufactured with double patterning. | 01-20-2011 |
20110113393 | METHOD, SYSTEM, AND PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR ROUTING AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT TO BE MANUFACTURED BY SIDEWALL-IMAGE TRANSFER - Disclosed is a method, apparatus, and program product for routing an electronic design using sidewall image transfer that is correct by construction. The layout is routed by construction to allow successful manufacturing with sidewall image transfer, since the router will not allow a routing configuration in the layout that cannot be successfully manufactured with a two-mask sidewall image transfer. A layout is produced that can be manufactured by a two-mask sidewall image transfer method. In one approach, interconnections can be in arbitrary directions. In another approach, interconnections follow grid lines in x and y-directions. | 05-12-2011 |
20120102442 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MODEL BASED MULTI-PATTERNING OPTIMIZATION - Some embodiments provide a method for optimally decomposing patterns within particular spatial regions of interest on a particular layer of a design layout for a multi-exposure photolithographic process. Specifically, some embodiments model the spatial region using a mathematical equation in terms of two or more intensities. Some embodiments then optimize the model across a set of feasible intensities. The optimization yields a set of intensities such that the union of the patterns created/printed from each exposure intensity most closely approximates the patterns within the particular regions. Based on the set of intensities, some embodiments then determine a decomposition solution for the patterns that satisfies design constraints of a multi-exposure photolithographic printing process. In this manner, some embodiments achieve an optimal photolithographic printing of the particular regions of interest without performing geometric rule based decomposition. | 04-26-2012 |
20130088245 | Capacitive Inspection Of EUV Photomasks - Methods and systems for generating an indication of a changing electrostatic field between a sense electrode of a capacitance sensing integrated circuit and a specimen under inspection are presented. The capacitance sensing integrated circuit is an integrated circuit that includes a number of sense electrodes and sense electronics. By fabricating the elements of the capacitance sensing integrated circuit as a single microelectronic chip, the sense electrodes can be miniaturized to sizes that enable inspection of fine line patterns common in modern semiconductor manufacturing. In one embodiment, the sense electrodes are metallic contacts. In another embodiment the sense electrodes are field effect transistors (FETs) with a floating gate. The sense electronics generate an indication of the changing electrostatic field between each sense electrode and a specimen under inspection as the specimen is scanned relative to the capacitance sensing integrated circuit. | 04-11-2013 |
20140068527 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MODIFYING A DATA SET OF A PHOTOMASK - The present invention provides a method for compensating infidelities of a process that transfers a pattern to a layer of an integrated circuit, by minimizing, with respect to a photomask pattern, a cost function that quantifies the deviation between designed and simulated values of circuit parameters of the pattern formed on a semiconductor wafer. | 03-06-2014 |
20140086475 | Model-Based Registration and Critical Dimension Metrology - A method and system for performing model-based registration and critical dimension measurement is disclosed. The method includes: utilizing an imaging device to obtain at least one optical image of a measurement site specified for a photomask; retrieving a design of photomask and utilizing a computer model of the imaging device to generate at least one simulated image of the measurement site; adjusting at least one parameter of the computer model to minimize dissimilarities between the simulated images and the optical images, wherein the parameters includes at least a pattern registration parameter or a critical dimension parameter; and reporting the pattern registration parameter or the critical dimension parameter of the computer model when dissimilarities between the simulated images and the optical images are minimized. | 03-27-2014 |
20140341462 | MACHINE LEARNING METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INSPECTING RETICLES - Apparatus and methods for inspecting a photolithographic reticle are disclosed. A reticle inspection tool is used at one or more operating modes to obtain images of a plurality of training regions of a reticle, and the training regions are identified as defect-free. Three or more basis training images are derived from the images of the training regions. A classifier is formed based on the three or more basis training images. The inspection system is used at the one or more operating modes to obtain images of a plurality of test regions of a reticle. Three or more basis test images are derived from to the test regions. The classifier is applied to the three or more basis test images to find defects in the test regions. | 11-20-2014 |
20150078650 | Block-to-Block Reticle Inspection - Block-to-block reticle inspection includes acquiring a swath image of a portion of a reticle with a reticle inspection sub-system, identifying a first occurrence of a block in the swatch image and at least a second occurrence of the block in the swath image substantially similar to the first occurrence of the block and determining at least one of a location, one or more geometrical characteristics of the block and a spatial offset between the first occurrence of the block and the at least a second occurrence of the block. | 03-19-2015 |
20150300965 | Scatterometry-Based Imaging and Critical Dimension Metrology - Methods and systems for performing measurements of semiconductor structures and materials based on scatterometry measurement data are presented. Scatterometry measurement data is used to generate an image of a material property of a measured structure based on the measured intensities of the detected diffraction orders. In some examples, a value of a parameter of interest is determined directly from the map of the material property of the measurement target. In some other examples, the image is compared to structural characteristics estimated by a geometric, model-based parametric inversion of the same measurement data. Discrepancies are used to update the geometric model of the measured structure and improve measurement performance. This enables a metrology system to converge on an accurate parametric measurement model when there are significant deviations between the actual shape of a manufactured structure subject to model-based measurement and the modeled shape of the structure. | 10-22-2015 |
20150324963 | Reticle Inspection Using Near-Field Recovery - Systems and methods for detecting defects on a reticle are provided. The embodiments include generating and/or using a data structure that includes pairs of predetermined segments of a reticle pattern and corresponding near-field data. The near-field data for the predetermined segments may be determined by regression based on actual image(s) of a reticle generated by a detector of a reticle inspection system. Inspecting a reticle may then include separately comparing two or more segments of a pattern included in an inspection area on the reticle to the predetermined segments and assigning near-field data to at least one of the segments based on the predetermined segment to which it is most similar. The assigned near-field data can then be used to simulate an image that would be formed for the reticle by the detector, which can be compared to an actual image generated by the detector for defect detection. | 11-12-2015 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090316824 | METHOD FOR TRANSMITTING A SEQUENCE OF SYMBOLS FOR EXPLOITING TRANSMIT DIVERSITY - An embodiment of a method for transmitting data through at least a channel in a wireless communication system, the method comprising at least the steps of:
| 12-24-2009 |
20110128842 | Method for Estimating a Received Signal and Corresponding Device - A method and apparatus for estimating a transmission channel in a receiver of an OFDMA signal formed by a plurality of carriers modulated by data elements and distributed in the time-frequency domain in successive symbols, the plurality of carriers including pilot carriers, modulated by reference data elements known by receivers. The method includes: receiving a signal comprising a series of n symbols covering at least one resource block; making an initial channel estimation by identifying the pilot carriers included in the series of n symbols; determining diagonal entries of p frequency domain channel matrices G | 06-02-2011 |
20120093246 | Channel Estimation Method - A channel estimating method is provided for a signal transmitted in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system, wherein an OFDM symbol of the signal has at least one null subcarrier set in its defined bandwidth. The method includes: obtaining at least one initial channel estimate over at least one OFDM symbol of a received signal; processing the at least one initial channel estimate for delivering at least one soft information in a form of a complete matrix; and updating the at least one initial channel estimate by performing a truncated singular value decomposition of a partial FFT matrix. The partial FFT matrix includes only the first L | 04-19-2012 |
20120140683 | METHOD OF EXPLOITATION OF CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE, APPARATUS AND COMPUTER PROGRAM - A method of canceling co-channel interference of a signal received by a mobile station having at least two receiving antennas, in a cellular OFDMA-TDD communication network having a serving base station and at least one interfering base station. The signal is a result of a serving signal transmitted by the serving base station which is distorted by at least one interfering signal transmitted by the interfering base station. The serving signal is transmitted with a first modulation scheme and the interfering signal is transmitted with a second modulation scheme. The method includes: a channel estimation phase delivering channel estimations of the serving signal and the interfering signal; and a MIMO detecting phase, detecting symbols by using the channel estimations of the serving signal and the interfering signal. The MIMO detection phase is realized using a non-linear method which uses the first modulation scheme and the second modulation scheme. | 06-07-2012 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20120321025 | ITERATIVE CHANNEL ESTIMATION METHOD WITH COMPENSATED MMSE - A channel estimation treatment method and device for obtaining binary data conveyed in a signal. The method includes: obtaining a current vector of channel estimates, each element of the current vector corresponding to an estimate of a subchannel; detecting, inside the current vector, at least one pilot symbol; splitting the current vector in at least two subvectors, at least one first subvector including channel estimates related to data symbols and/or pilots symbols and at least one second subvector including channel estimates related to null symbols; decoding the at least one first subvector, delivering at least one first treated subvector; modifying the at least one second subvector by assuming presence of pilot symbols in the at least one second subvector, delivering at least one second treated subvector; and calculating a new vector of channel estimates with the at least one first treated subvector and the at least one second treated subvector. | 12-20-2012 |
20130163704 | Interference Cancellation Method with Multiple Data Layer MIMO Transmission - A method and apparatus are provided for cancelling interferences of a received MIMO RF signal. The method includes: receiving a signal y; an initial step of obtaining, from the received signal y, at least one data representative of the received signal, called decoded data; computing the decoded data as a function of at least one predetermined criterion, delivering feedback data and a feedback decision; and, as a function of the feedback decision, at least one iteration of the following steps: constructing a set of feedback symbols from the feedback data; obtaining, from the set of feedback symbols, at least one data representative of a feedback decoded signal, called feedback decoded data; computing the at least one feedback decoded data as a function of the at least one predetermined criterion, delivering the feedback data. | 06-27-2013 |