MLA150 - Design Guidelines

Notes and specifications to help you design your CAD drawings for use on the Maskless Aligner, Heidelberg MLA150.

The term Convert refers to the Unix conversion software used to import your CAD files into the MLA150Menu software.

CAD Design File Specifications

GDS aka. GDSii

• This is the preferred file format for import into the machine.

• Make note of the "Cell" that you want to print, often called the "top cell" as it can contain a hierarchy of other child/instanced cells.
  • This is called "GDS Structure" in the Convert software.

DXF

Common export format for users of AutoCAD.

• DXF files can often lose the "units" when exported, meaning the Convert software may not know if a length of "10" means "10 mm" or "10 µm".
• It is easy for these files to have "open polygons", meaning the ends of the polygon don't attach, preventing the software from calculating the filled-in area to write. You can use L-Edit or KLayout's Design Rule Checker automation to try and locate these kinds of errors.
• Make sure to use Convert's [Viewer] and the [Measure] tool to make sure the scaling factors are correct.

BMP

The BMP Pixelsizes are shown in the BMP options when importing a file into Convert. The BMP pixel size can be adjusted to change the scaling of the bmp file (from 40 to 4000nm). The base pixel size is 40nm.

CIF

To Be Added

Gerber

To Be Added

High-Resolution Writing

It has been suggested to use the "CD Bias" (Critical dimension) to reduce your feature sizes during the Convert process, and then compensate by going to higher exposure doses (widening the features back to original size). If you choose a "-200 nm" CD Bias, then run a Focus-Exposure Array ("Series" in MLAMenu), you will look for the higher/lower doses (depending on photoresist and design polarity) that bring the features back to the original designed sizes.

Overexposing alleviates the stitching boundaries.