Patent ID: 8736816

Claim:
A method of designing an asymmetrical complementary dipole element, comprising: (a) selecting critical design images of a design of an integrated circuit fabrication level; (b) selecting or generating an initial asymmetrical complementary dipole design and designating said initial design asymmetrical complementary dipole design as a current asymmetrical complementary dipole design, said current asymmetrical complementary dipole design always consisting of first dipole openings passing a first intensity of light and a second dipole openings passing a second intensity of light in an opaque substrate, said first intensity of light always greater than said second intensity of light, and said first dipole openings always having an area greater than an area of said second dipole openings; (c) simulating exposure of a photoresist layer using first parameters describing said critical design images and second parameters describing said current asymmetrical complementary dipole design to generate simulated images of said critical design images; (d) evaluating third parameters describing said simulated image; and (e) if said third parameters are not acceptable, only modifying one or more of said second parameters and only repeating steps (c) and (d) and if said third parameters are acceptable, selecting said current asymmetrical complementary dipole design.