Patent ID: 8304354

Claim:
A method of laser annealing a wafer having a plurality of dies with a laser beam, the method comprising: receiving a first length of a first sub-area within one of the dies wherein the first sub-area is not allowed to overlap with a boundary of the laser beam; receiving a second length of a second sub-area within one of the dies wherein the second sub-area is permitted to overlap with the boundary of the laser beam; receiving a desired overlap between adjacent scan paths of a scan pattern; determining a size of the laser beam from the first length, the second length, and the desired overlap so that the size of the laser beam is large enough to cover an integer number of the first sub-area without partially covering an additional first sub-area; determining a scan pattern for the laser beam so that the boundary of the laser beam of the determined size does not overlap the first sub-area throughout the scan pattern; and laser annealing the wafer based on the determined size of the laser beam and the determined scan pattern for the laser beam.