OPC Application Today
Today, OPC is rarely practiced without the use of commercial packages from EDA vendors. Advances in algorithms, modeling techniques and the use of large compute farms has enabled the most critical patterning layers to be corrected overnight, starting from the 130 nm design rules (when model based OPC was first used) down to the most advanced designs of today using 32 nm design rules. The number of layers requiring sophisticated OPC has increased with advanced nodes, as previously non-critical layers now require compensation.
The use of OPC is not restricted to the low features which are commonly encountered today, but can be applied to any desired image correction scheme which can be modeled accurately. For example, proximity effect correction in electron beam lithography is included as an automated capability on commercial electron-beam lithography tools. Since many non-lithographic processes exhibit their own proximity effects, e.g., chemical-mechanical polishing or plasma etching, these effects can be mixed in with the original OPC.
Read more about this topic: Optical Proximity Correction
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