US 12,242,183 B2
Enforcing mask synthesis consistency across random areas of integrated circuit chips
Thomas Christopher Cecil, Menlo Park, CA (US); and Kevin Hooker, Austin, TX (US)
Assigned to Synopsys, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Filed by Synopsys, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Filed on Apr. 3, 2024, as Appl. No. 18/626,291.
Application 18/626,291 is a division of application No. 17/749,952, filed on May 20, 2022, granted, now 11,977,327.
Application 17/749,952 is a division of application No. 16/929,700, filed on Jul. 15, 2020, granted, now 11,360,382, issued on Jun. 14, 2022.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/875,579, filed on Jul. 18, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2024/0248392 A1, Jul. 25, 2024
Int. Cl. G06F 30/30 (2020.01); G03F 1/36 (2012.01); G03F 1/44 (2012.01); G03F 1/70 (2012.01); G06F 16/51 (2019.01); G06F 30/392 (2020.01); G06F 111/20 (2020.01)
CPC G03F 1/70 (2013.01) [G03F 1/36 (2013.01); G03F 1/44 (2013.01); G06F 16/51 (2019.01); G06F 30/392 (2020.01); G06F 2111/20 (2020.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method to perform mask synthesis for a circuit design, the method comprising:
receiving the circuit design representing a physical layout of a circuit, the circuit design comprising geometric shapes;
identifying a region within the circuit design;
identifying a plurality of mask patterns for the region, wherein at least some of the plurality of mask patterns are overlapping, each mask pattern using a vector representation of geometric shapes;
generating a plurality of image mask representations comprising, for each mask pattern from the plurality of mask patterns, rasterizing the mask pattern to generate an image mask representation comprising a plurality of pixel values;
determining a weighted aggregate of the plurality of image mask representations to generate an aggregate image mask representation, wherein a pixel value closer to center of the region is weighted higher than a pixel value far from the center of the region; and
generating, by a processing device, an aggregate mask pattern from the aggregate image mask representation.