Patent ID: 9671686
Date: 2017-06-06
CPC Classifications: G03F

Claim:
1. A method of forming an integrated circuit mask, comprising: updating integrated circuit mask data associated with a digital representation of a preliminary integrated circuit mask by performing at least one of proximity effect correction (PEC) of errors in a patterned integrated circuit substrate that are caused by electron-beam proximity effects and mask process correction (MPC) of errors in the patterned integrated circuit substrate that are caused during electron-beam exposure of the integrated circuit substrate using the preliminary integrated circuit mask to define at least one pattern thereon; and writing the integrated circuit mask, which corresponds to the updated integrated circuit mask data, onto a mask substrate by exposing the mask substrate to an electron beam that defines the integrated circuit mask as a physical pattern on a surface of the mask substrate, said writing comprising generating pixel data from the updated integrated circuit mask data and performing an electron beam writing of the physical pattern using the pixel data; wherein said updating is preceded by extracting shape data and density data from the integrated circuit mask data; wherein the extracted shape data is converted into bitmap data using a rasterization operation; and wherein the pixel data is generated by merging the bitmap data with the extracted density data.