Patent ID: 7350182

Claim:
A method of forming a patterned reticle, comprising: providing a design which is ultimately to be printed in radiation-sensitive material utilizing the patterned reticle, the design having at least two features which are at different locations but otherwise desired to be identical in printed dimension to one another; utilizing a first set of design rules to develop an approximation of a pattern layout for the patterned reticle, the approximation comprising a first set of layout elements, the layout elements within the approximation for the at least two features being identical to one another; adding additional layout elements to the approximation to form an adjusted approximation of the pattern layout, the additional layout elements being asymmetric relative to the at least two features so that the layout elements within the adjusted approximation for the at least two features are not identical to one another; performing an optical proximity correction on the adjusted approximation of the pattern layout to form a pattern layout dataset; and utilizing the pattern layout dataset either directly or with modification to tape an arrangement of relatively opaque and relatively transparent regions onto a reticle to form the patterned reticle; the patterned reticle ultimately producing the at least two features of the design more similar to each other than it would if the additional layout elements had not been present during the optical proximity correction.