MaskOpt: A Large-Scale Mask Optimization Dataset to Advance AI in Integrated Circuit Manufacturing

TL;DR

MaskOpt is a comprehensive large-scale dataset designed to improve deep learning-based mask optimization in IC manufacturing by incorporating real design contexts, standard-cell hierarchy, and neighboring geometries.

Contribution

The paper introduces MaskOpt, a large-scale, real IC design dataset with context-aware features for advancing deep learning in mask optimization.

Findings

Deep learning models show varied performance on MaskOpt benchmarks.

Context size significantly impacts mask optimization accuracy.

Cell-aware inputs improve deep learning model effectiveness.

Abstract

As integrated circuit (IC) dimensions shrink below the lithographic wavelength, optical lithography faces growing challenges from diffraction and process variability. Model-based optical proximity correction (OPC) and inverse lithography technique (ILT) remain indispensable but computationally expensive, requiring repeated simulations that limit scalability. Although deep learning has been applied to mask optimization, existing datasets often rely on synthetic layouts, disregard standard-cell hierarchy, and neglect the surrounding contexts around the mask optimization targets, thereby constraining their applicability to practical mask optimization. To advance deep learning for cell- and context-aware mask optimization, we present MaskOpt, a large-scale benchmark dataset constructed from real IC designs at the 45$\mathrm{nm}$ node. MaskOpt includes 104,714 metal-layer tiles and 121,952 via-layer tiles. Each tile is clipped at a standard-cell placement to preserve cell information, exploiting repeated logic gate occurrences. Different context window sizes are supported in MaskOpt to capture the influence of neighboring shapes from optical proximity effects. We evaluate state-of-the-art deep learning models for IC mask optimization to build up benchmarks, and the evaluation results expose distinct trade-offs across baseline models. Further context size analysis and input ablation studies confirm the importance of both surrounding geometries and cell-aware inputs in achieving accurate mask generation.