Design for Manufacturing and Yield: Trends in the Semiconductor Industry

Inhalt:
The semiconductor industry is characterized by ever-decreasing feature sizes. In some areas actual technologies are already close to the physical limits. E.g. the gate oxide which isolates the transistor gate from the channel consists only of a few atom layers; only a relatively low number of doping atoms determine whether a region is N or P doped. Furthermore, the structures that we are printing today are much smaller than the wavelength of the light that is used during the lithography process. In order to be able to manufacture such circuits at affordable cost in the future, it is no longer sufficient to concentrate on improvements in the manufacturing process alone. It is necessary to take into account manufacturability and yield during earlier stages in the design process. Therefore, during the last couple of years, Design for Manufacturing and Design for Yield (DfM/DfY) have become established as a fourth optimization goal during the design process, alongside area, performance and power.