Mentor Graphics Corporation today announced availability of Calibre® nmOPC, a third-generation optical proximity correction (OPC) tool that expands the Calibre arsenal of resolution enhancement technology (RET) products for sub-65 nanometer (nm) process technologies. The Calibre nmOPC tool and the companion OPC verification tool, Calibre OPCverify™ (announced earlier this year), usher in a new era of computational lithography by delivering superior simulation accuracy with the highest performance and lowest cost of ownership in the industry.
Low k1 photolithography processes are increasing the complexity of RET applications in nanometer designs. At 45nm, more complex models and through process window correction and verification requirements significantly increase computational burden. Both the lithographic challenges and the computational complexity associated with the 45nm process node create a need for advanced capabilities for computational lithography tools.
Calibre nmOPC answers these challenges by delivering several innovations including dense simulation, process window optimized OPC, a hybrid computing platform utilizing co-processor acceleration (with the Cell BE processor), a new compact resist process modeling capability, and design-intent aware correction algorithms. The Calibre nmOPC tool offers best-in-class accuracy, speed, and cost of ownership. Like all Calibre family products, Calibre nmOPC and Calibre OPCverify run on the fully integrated Calibre hierarchical geometry engine uniquely enabling a fully integrated design to mask flow with a unified command language. Calibre nmOPC also delivers many practical production features such as: OASIS formatting to minimize output file size; new streamlined hierarchical processing to improve run time and file size compared to flat OPC tools, a progress meter and dynamic CPU allocation capability to manage TAT in a production environment.
By Mentor Graphics
Posted December 30th, 2006 by Nymphadora
