Speeding Up Computational Lithography with the Power and Parallelism of GPUs

There are so many challenges in producing modern semiconductor devices that it’s amazing for the industry to pull it off at all. From the underlying physics to fabrication processes to the development flow, there is no shortage of tough issues to address. Some of the biggest arise in lithography for deep submicron chips. A recent post outlined the major trends in lithography and summarized a few challenges and emerging solutions. This post focuses on another key challenge—the dramatic rise in computing requirements for lithography—and discusses how graphical processing units (GPUs) can help to satisfy the demand. The source of the increased computing demand lies in compensating for image errors introduced during the lithographic process by diffraction or process effects, which takes longer with increasingly dense chip designs. If left uncorrected, the patterns etched on silicon will not precisely reproduce the shapes drawn by the designers. Corners may be rounded and line widths may b ... Read full article.