Patent 7966586 was granted and assigned to Cadence Design Systems on June, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The present invention is directed to an improved method, system, and computer program product for accessing and analyzing patterns in the integrated circuit design. The method, system or computer program product includes generating an intelligent signature for a pattern. The derived pattern signature is an intelligent pattern identifier because it retains only essential information about a pattern that corresponds to lithography printable portions of the pattern. Accordingly, one pattern signature can represent a group of design patterns that are equivalents from a lithography perspective.