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The diversification of mask making equipment in modem mask manufacturing has led to a large variety of different mask writing and inspection formats. Dispositioning the equipment and managing the data flow has turned into a challenging task. The data volumes of individual files used in the manufacture of modem integrated circuits have become unmanageable using established data format specifications. Several trends explain this: size, content and complexity of the designs are growing; the application of RET increases the vertex counts; complex data preparation flows post tape-out result in a large number of intermediate representations of the data. In addition assembly steps are introduced prior to mask making for leveling critical parameters. Despite the continuous effort to improve the performance of the individual tools that handle the data, is has become apparent that enhancements to the entire flow are necessary to gain efficiency. One concept suggested is the unification of the mask data representation: establishing a common format that can be accepted by all tools. This facilitates a streamlining of data prep flows to eliminate processing overhead and repeated execution of similar functions.

OASIS, the new stream format developed under the sponsorship of SEMI, has the necessary features to full-fill the role of a common format in mask manufacturing.

The paper describes the implementation of OASIS as a common intermediate format in the mask data preparation flow as well as its usage with additional restrictions as a common Variable-Shaped-Beam mask writer format. The benefits are illustrated with experimental results. Different implementation scenarios are discussed.