Patent ID: 7678408

Claim:
A method for compensating film height modulations in spin coating of a resist film layer, the method comprising: providing a desired layout pattern comprising a plurality of structural features, each structural feature having a characteristic feature size; determining a substrate topography as a result of lithographically structuring a substrate with said desired layout pattern in a plurality of image fields; providing a spin coating model, said spin coating model being applicable to determine a modeled resist film height based on said substrate topography during spin coating of a resist film; determining a nominal resist film height by using said spin coating model with an unperturbed substrate topography having a flat surface; selecting a plurality of test points on said substrate; determining film height modulations based on a difference of said nominal resist film height and said modeled resist film height for each of said test points; and optimizing said desired layout pattern by implementing further structural elements in order to form an optimized mask pattern by minimizing said film height modulations.