Patent ID: 7587691

Claim:
A method for determining an electrical property for an interconnect layer, the method comprising: receiving interconnect technology data which includes: nominal parameter values for a first interconnect layer, wherein the nominal parameter values characterize semiconductor manufacturing processes that are used to manufacture the first interconnect layer, and parameter-variation coefficients which represent variations in the nominal parameter values due to random process variations; receiving an interconnect template which describes a geometry of a portion of the first interconnect layer; using at least a computer to determine electrical property data for the interconnect template using the interconnect technology data, wherein determining the electrical property data involves: determining a set of discretized elements for the interconnect template; determining a coefficient matrix using the set of discretized elements; factorizing the coefficient matrix to obtain a set of matrix factors; determining a nominal electrical property value using the set of matrix factors, wherein the nominal electrical property value characterizes an electrical property of the interconnect template; and reusing the set of matrix factors to determine the sensitivity coefficients which represent the sensitivities of the nominal electrical property value to variations in the nominal parameter values; and storing the electrical property data in a storage.