Patent ID: 8601411

Claim:
A method for pre-coloring IC layout data for a multiple patterning lithography process, comprising: generating a graphical IC layout file using a computing device, wherein the graphical IC layout file comprises a plurality of IC shapes within SRAM data lines or oxide definition layers of an SRAM sense amplifier; pre-coloring selective IC shapes to have a same color that indicates that the pre-colored IC shapes are to be formed on a same mask, using the computing device; operating a decomposition algorithm using the computing device, wherein the decomposition algorithm assigns two or more different colors to uncolored IC shapes while the pre-colored IC shapes keep their pre-colored colors; and forming a multi-mask set for the multiple patterning lithography process, using the computing device, in a manner such that IC shapes assigned the same color are formed on a same mask and IC shapes assigned different colors are formed on different masks; wherein forming the pre-colored IC shapes on the same mask reduces processing variations between on-chip structures corresponding to the pre-colored IC shapes.