Patent ID: 8434031

Claim:
A computer system comprising: one or more processors; and a memory having computer executable instructions stored thereon that cause the one or more processors to perform a set of operations, the set of operations comprising: reading all or a portion of a desired layout pattern; defining a set of mask data having a number of pixels that are assigned a transmission value; determining an objective function that compares a simulation of the image intensity on a wafer to an ideal image intensity; defining a set of ideal image intensities from the desired layout pattern, wherein the maximum ideal image intensity is selected to be substantially equal to the maximum image intensity determined from a test image of features at the tightest pitch pattern produced by the photolithographic imaging system; minimizing the objective function to determine a first set of transmission values for the pixels in the mask data that will produce the desired layout on a wafer; deriving a geometric representation from the set of mask data and the first set of transmission values; applying a geometric simplification process to the geometric representation to generate a simplified geometric representation; determining a second set of transmission values for the pixels in the mask data from the simplified geometric representation.