December 21, 2004 – Synopsys Inc. and UMC have announced that UMC is using Synopsys’ alternating aperture phase-shift mask (AA-PSM) technology to enhance manufacturability for its 90nm process.
Manufacturability improvements are obtained through increased lithography resolution, a larger process window, and better performance enabled by the AA-PSM technology. UMC can now deliver the benefits of AA-PSM to those customers developing high-performance and low-power integrated circuits on 90nm technology.
UMC and Synopsys engineers worked together to retarget an FPGA chip to the AA-PSM process using Synopsys’ DFM flow. The flow consisted of Proteus optical proximity correction software, Synopsys’ AA-PSM technology, SiVL lithography verification software, Hercules design rule check and mask rule check tools, and CATS fracturing software.