Managing PEC Data Volume to Improve Throughput

Motivation:

Proximity effect correction (PEC) is an important and often needed technique to enable accurate e-beam lithography. However, PEC usually result in an increase in shape count, which can increase data processing time and exposure time.

Solution:

This application note reviews two key techniques to manage shape count increase when applying PEC, adjusting the PEC accuracy, and applying “Heal per dose” to control shape count while still successfully applying PEC.