Hybrid lithography for triple patterning decomposition and E-beam lithography

As we advances into 14/10nm technology node, single patterning technology is far from enough to fabricate the features with shrinking feature size. According to International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors in 2011,¹ double patterning lithography is already available for massive productions in industry for sub-32nm half pitch technology node. For 14/10nm technology node, double patterning begins to show its limitations as it uses too many stitches to resolve the native coloring conflicts. Stitches will increase the manufacturing cost, lead to potential functional errors of the chip, and cause the yield lost. Triple patterning lithography and E-Beam lithography are two emerging techniques to beat the diffraction limit for current optical lithography system. In this paper, we investigate combining the merits of triple patterning lithography and E-Beam lithography for standard cell based designs. We devise an approach to compute a stitch free decomposition with the optimal number of E-Beam shots for row structure layout. The approach is expected to highlight the necessity and advantages of using hybrid lithography for advanced technology node.