A Review of DNN and GPU in Optical Proximity Correction

Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) is a resolution enhancement technique. It compensates for imaging distortions by modifying the mask patterns. In advanced nodes, inverse lithography technology (ILT) is used to produce more complex and finer mask shapes. However, ILT increases the computational complexity and runtime. In recent years, researchers have attempted to accelerate the process using GPUs and have improved the accuracy using deep neural networks (DNN). In the past decade, new breakthroughs in various DNN fields, including but not limited to CNN, GNN, GAN, Transformer and other algorithms, have further improved the accuracy of OPC algorithms. The high performance of GPU has provided a foundation for OPC and DNN. In this paper, we summarize the key OPC technologies during this period and make projections for them in the future.