Cadence donates multi-patterned lithography technology

Si2 announced that Cadence has donated extensions to the OpenAccess community which enable physical design tools to represent Multi-Patterned Technology (MPT).

Conventional photolithography cannot accurately pattern the geometries required for the 20nm process node and below. Foundries have turned to various multi-patterning lithography techniques to address this issue. Shapes on the same layer manufactured with multi-patterned technology (MPT) are created through multiple exposures using multiple masks. Physical design tools must be able to assign shapes on an MPT process layer to a specific mask so that they can check mask-based physical design rule rules to ensure that the design can be fabricated.

The technology contribution includes OpenAccess extensions which enable physical design tools to represent MPT information. The extensions support several features, such as, assigning mask "colors" to shapes and vias. To enable different instances of a design to be colored differently, the color of the shapes can be shifted on a per-layer basis. Shapes and vias can also be locked to prevent hierarchical color shifting of instances containing those objects. Color information can be associated with track patterns to help routers efficiently assign color. A detailed description of these extensions accompanies the contribution.


The contribution consists of source code and documentation of the OpenAccess extensions for the MPT “colors.” Users are responsible for compiling this source code along with their application and any code they write to access and manipulate these oaAppDefs. The contributed code must be used with OpenAccess 22.43 or later. Click here for download/licensing information.

Brian Bailey – keeping you covered

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