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Photomasks are commonly used in photolithography for the production of integrated circuits (ICs or "chips") to produce a pattern on a thin wafer of material (usually silicon). In semiconductor manufacturing, a mask is sometimes called a reticle. [1] [2]
Producing a reticle layout with test patterns and alignment marks. Layout-to-mask preparation that enhances layout data with graphics operations and adjusts the data to mask production devices. This step includes resolution enhancement technologies (RET), such as optical proximity correction (OPC) or inverse lithography technology (ILT).
The term tapeout currently is used to describe the creation of the photomask itself from the final approved electronic CAD file. Designers may use this term to refer to the writing of the final file to disk or CD and its subsequent transmission to the semiconductor foundry; however, in current practice the foundry will perform checks and make modifications to the mask design specific to the ...
Photolithography is the most common method for the semiconductor fabrication of integrated circuits ("ICs" or "chips"), such as solid-state memories and microprocessors. It can create extremely small patterns, down to a few nanometers in size. It provides precise control of the shape and size of the objects it creates.
An illustration of OPC (Optical Proximity Correction). The blue Γ-like shape is what chip designers would like printed on a wafer, in green is the pattern on a mask after applying optical proximity correction, and the red contour is how the shape actually prints on the wafer (quite close to the desired blue target).
A variety of reticles, each appropriate for one stage in the process, are contained in a rack in the reticle loader, usually located at the upper front of the stepper. Before the wafer is exposed a reticle is loaded onto the reticle stage by a robot, where it is also very precisely aligned. Since the same reticle can be used to expose many ...
Layout view of a simple CMOS operational amplifier. In integrated circuit design, integrated circuit (IC) layout, also known IC mask layout or mask design, is the representation of an integrated circuit in terms of planar geometric shapes which correspond to the patterns of metal, oxide, or semiconductor layers that make up the components of the integrated circuit.
ATPG (acronym for both automatic test pattern generation and automatic test pattern generator) is an electronic design automation method or technology used to find an input (or test) sequence that, when applied to a digital circuit, enables automatic test equipment to distinguish between the correct circuit behavior and the faulty circuit behavior caused by defects.