Mohamed Al-Imam and Rami Fathy
IBM Microelectronics and Mentor Graphics

In recent years, design for manufacturability (DfM) has become an important focus item of the semiconductor industry and many new DfM applications have arisen. Most of these applications rely heavily on the ability to model process sensitivity and here we explore the role of through-process modeling on DfM applications. Several different DfM applications are examined and their lithography model requirements analyzed. The complexities of creating through-process models are then explored and methods to ensure their accuracy presented.