Patent ID: 8775983

Claim:
A system for displaying design solutions to odd loops, each odd loop comprising a plurality of shapes that cannot be printed according to design constraints in a dual patterning printing process for a layer of a circuit design layout, the system comprising: a design violation identifier for identifying an odd loop comprising a set of shapes and a plurality of gaps between opposing edges of neighboring shapes in the odd loop; a design solution generator for (i) identifying, for each gap of the plurality of gaps, a movability of the corresponding pair of opposing shape edges, wherein the movability is a distance that the pair of opposing shape edges can be moved apart from each other without violating design constraints and (ii) generating a set of design solutions for the odd loop identified by the design violation identifier, each design solution for indicating a set of gaps that can be modified such that the set of shapes of the odd loop can be printed without violating the design constraints; a design solution analyzer for categorizing the design solutions based on a level of difficulty in applying each design solution to the circuit design layout, wherein the level of difficulty is based on the movability of the pair of opposing shape edges for each gap in the set of gaps of each design solution; and a design solution displayer for displaying a visual indication for each design solution based on the category of the design solution.