HOTSPOT DISCOVERY AND CONTROL
Hotspot Management: Process Window Discovery and Control
With advanced patterning techniques and shrinking design nodes come the proliferation of hotspots, and complex correlations between hotspots and increasingly narrow process margins. Additionally we see a change in the causes of hotspots; design systematics related to layout or OPC no longer dominate as the primary source of hotspots. We are seeing an increasing effect from process systematics, which are related to design but are induced by process related sources (wafer non-uniformity, process variations), or, in case of multi-patterning schemes, also by interactions between the different masks. These hotspot complexities are driving the need for process window discovery, expansion and control.
