SoftJin enhances analysis capabilities and performance of NxDAT defect analysis software

SANTA CLARA, USA & BANGALORE, INDIA: SoftJin Technologies, a provider of customized automation software for Electronic Design and Manufacturing, today announced the enhanced version of NxDAT, its Defect Analysis software.

NxDAT is widely used by Mask shops and Wafer foundries for efficient analysis of Defects identified by IC Photomask Inspection Systems. NxDAT, with its open Architecture, can be easily extended for analysis of defects identified by a variety of Inspection equipments including IC/FPD Mask Inspection Systems, Wafer Inspection Systems and Metrology Systems.

NxDAT includes a host of features for navigation, visualization, sophisticated image measurement, cross-section analysis and repeatability analysis for accurate analysis and classification of defects. The enhanced version of NxDAT is optimized for better performance in terms of both speed and memory.

Several new analysis options in the Defect Image Analysis and Defect-to-CAD Database correlation area provide the user with more insight into nature of defect. Also, new usability improvement features such as customizable GUI Layout, batch mode support, property based file opening and user-defined filters provide greater flexibility and efficiency to users.

“Our customers are reporting a variety of tangible benefits of using NxDAT for both on-line and off-line defect analysis. With the growing defect volume and complexity of analysis involved, we are adding a host of new features and improvements to NxDAT in response to customer feedback. These enhancements further improve the productivity of operators doing defect analysis as well as enable mask shops and foundries to realize greater value from their Mask Inspection Systems.” says Dr. Ravi Pai, MD and chief architect (Post Layout EDA) at SoftJin Technologies.

As part of Open Architecture support in NxDAT, SoftJin provides a generic Reader/Writer Plug-In interface through which various defect file formats can be easily supported. The new version of NxDAT supports SEMI’s P41-0304E Mask defect data specification standard. With its capability of loading and stacking multiple inspections in different formats, NxDAT can be used as common Defect Analysis software for various inspection equipment.

NxDAT combines Mask Inspection and Design Automation worlds by supporting correlation of mask defect data with CAD Layout data in major industry standard IC Layout and Mask Data formats. SoftJin has now enhanced this feature by providing direct interface with HOTSCOPE Layout and Mask data Viewer. HOTSCOPE, an industry standard Layout and mask data viewer from Jedat Inc. (Japan), is capable of reading and displaying huge sized mask data quickly and accurately. With HOTSCOPE interface in NxDAT, user can navigate through the defect data in NxDAT and at the same time visualize the corresponding region of CAD data in HOTSCOPE, thus enabling design based defect criticality analysis.

Key new features in the enhanced version of NxDAT include:
* Image enhancement options such as display of defect region as zoomed images, multi-level threshold images and overlay of gray level matrix on the image.
* Automatic registration of images enabling the user to analyze the correctly aligned images.
* Scripting interface to run the software in Batch mode. Batch mode enables user to automate tasks in the defect analysis flow.
* Multi-tier classification support to add any number of secondary classifications. As an example, primary classification could be for Defect type, and a secondary classification could be used for disposition or action to be applied on the defect after analysis.
* CAD data correlation support for OASIS.MASK along with the existing GDSII, OASIS, MEBES, OASIS.VSB formats.
* User defined GUI layout option to customize and save the preferred layout configuration of NxDAT.
* Property based file opening feature to select defect files based on the reticle name, inspection name, barcodes, etc.
* Regression plots between various attributes of defect data.
* Automatic Binning of defects using programmable ranking function based on defect criteria such as defect area, CD, etc.
* With the performance improvements in latest version of NxDAT, opening a 10,000 defect file takes less than a minute on inexpensive PCs and navigating between defects is instantaneous.

SoftJin also offers NxDAT customization services wherein NxDAT can be enhanced as per the specific needs of the equipment vendor or end user.