Case 1 Staggered Array

The first example uses a staggered array. The edges of the cells form a continuous barrier. We wish to generate a collar that "touches" the array's periphery and which has cutouts for alignment targets and a mask ID.

Here is the information we know about the array and the mask:

input file: array.gds
input structure: array
units/resolution: mm / .0001 mm 
array on layer: 1
data centered on: 0,0

mask bbox: -100,-100,100,100
margin:  0
gap: 0

Cutouts
target:  -82,-82,-78,-78
target:   78,-82, 82,-78
target:  -82,78,-78,82
mask id:  60.0,91.0,90.0,95.0

Output File
name:       collar.gds
structure:  collar
layer:      6

Command Line

The command line is all one line -- it is shown here broken into several lines for purposes of clarity.

c:\wcad\collar\collar.exe  

   array.gds array 1 

        -bbox: -100,-100,100,100

          -cutout:-82,-82,-78,-78
          -cutout:78,-82,82,-78
          -cutout:-82,78,-78,82
          -cutout:60.0,91.0,96.0,95.0

             -margin:0
             -gap:0

                -output:collar.gds,collar,6

Results

The results are a GDSII file that has a collar on layer 6. The user can then merge this data with the array data (and targets/maskid) to produce the final wafer mask.

If you would like to examine the sample files you can download:

array.gds 18 KB GDSII file

collar.gds 2 KB GDSII file

Merging the Array Data and the Collar into a Single File

Now that we have a collar for the mask, the next logical step is to combine the array data and the collar file into a single GDSII file. This can be done using Artwork's GDSFILT program. Since this example is using a command line approach, we provide the command line to do this.

While a complete discussion of gdsfilt's functions and command line options is too extensive for this application note, a short review is possible. GDSFILT has several modes for combining files -- in this example we are going to use the add/combine mode to add the contents of two GDSII files together.

GDSFILT Syntax

gdsfilte.exe

    input_file  output_file  input_file_top_structure

      -unixcmdline
   
         -add file_to_add

           -combine output_top_structure  added_file_top_structure

where
-----

gdsfilte.exe                 name of the gdsfilt engine

input_file                   one of the files to merge

output_file                  the new gdsii file that will 
                             contain the merged data

input_file_top_strcture      top level structure of the input file


-unixcmdline                 a special argument (needed only in windows)
                             that tells the engine we are going to run
                             from a command line ...

-add file_to_add             name of the "second" file to add to
                             the input file.

-combine                     indicates we will combine the two files
                             and not replace any structure data; i.e. if
                             the files have common named structures they
                             will be renamed to avoid collisions

output_top_structure         the name of the top level structure in the
                             output file.

added_file_top_structure     the name of the top level structure in the
                             file that will be added to the input file.

In our example the input file is called array.gds with a top structure name of array. The file to add is called collar.gds with a top level structure called collar. The output file will be called mask.gds with a top level structure called TOP.

gdsfilte.exe

    array.gds  mask.gds  array

      -unixcmdline
   
         -add collar.gds

           -combine TOP  collar

The results of merging the two files are shown below. The collar data (on layer 6 ) is displayed in red and the array data (on layer 1) is displayed in black.