Layout modification for library cell Alt-PSM composability

In sub-wavelength lithography, light field Alt-PSM (Alternating Phase Shifting Mask) is an essential technology for poly layer printability. In a standard cell based design, the problem of obtaining Alt-PSM compliance for an individual cell layout has been solved well [3]. However, placing Alt-PSM compliant cells together can not guarantee Alt-PSM compliance of the entire chip/block layout due to phase interactions among adjacent cells. A simple solution to this AltPSM composability problem is to wrap blank area around each cell, which is very inefficient on chip area usage. In this paper, we formulate the composability problem as a graph model and propose a polynomial time optimal algorithm to achieve Alt-PSM composability with the least impact on cell layout.