Patent ID: 8358828

Claim:
A method for querying a preprocessed library of patterns, comprising: associating a range with a first pattern; determining a representation or signature for the first pattern; determining a representation or signature for a second pattern, wherein one of the representation or signature for the first pattern and the representation or signature for the second pattern is incapable of being converted back to geometric entities used to generate the representation or signature for the first pattern or for the second pattern; determining a distance between the representation or signature for the first pattern and the representation or signature for the second pattern; determining whether the distance between the representation or signature for the first pattern and the representation or signature for the second pattern is within the range for the first pattern; transforming, by using a processor, the representation or signature for the second pattern with a transformation matrix into a score to provide information about the second pattern, in which the information indicates whether the second pattern in a layout design contains a hotspot.