Method for determining candidate patterns from set of patterns of a patterning process

1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions therein, the instructions, when executed by a processor system, configured to cause the processor system to at least:

obtain (i) a set of patterns of a patterning process, (ii) a search pattern having a first feature and a second feature, and (iii) a search condition comprising a relative position between the first feature and the second feature of the search pattern; and

determine a set of candidate patterns from the set of patterns that satisfies the search condition associated with the first feature and the second feature of the search pattern.

2. The medium of claim 1 , wherein the relative position is defined between an element of the first feature and an element of the second feature of the search pattern.

3. The medium of claim 2 , wherein the element comprises an edge and/or a vertex of the respective feature.

4. The medium of claim 1 , wherein the search condition further comprises a tolerance limit associated with the relative position between elements of the features and/or a dimension of the features.

5. The medium of claim 1 , wherein the first feature and the second feature are on a same layer.

6. The medium of claim 1 , wherein the first feature and the second feature are on different layers.

7. The medium of claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the processor system to:

obtain a bounding box around the search pattern and a search condition associated with the bounding box and a feature of the search pattern; and

determine a subset of candidate patterns from the set of candidate patterns that satisfies the search condition associated with the bounding box.

8. The medium of claim 7 , wherein the search condition associated with the bounding box comprises a relative position between an edge of the feature of the search pattern and an edge of the bounding box and/or an angle between the edge of the feature of the search pattern and the edge of the bounding box.

9. The medium of claim 7 , wherein the search condition associated with the bounding box further comprises a tolerance limit associated with the relative position between an element of the feature of the search pattern and the bounding box.

10. The medium of claim 7 , wherein the search condition associated with the bounding box is associated with a feature of the search pattern that is closest to the bounding box.

11. The medium of claim 7 , wherein the instructions configured to cause the processor system to determine the subset of candidate patterns are further configured to compare one or more parameters of a feature of the search pattern and corresponding one or more parameters of a feature of the set of patterns.

12. The medium of claim 11 , wherein the one or more parameters comprises at least one selected from:

an edge of the feature;

size of the feature; and/or

topology of the feature.

13. The medium of claim 7 , wherein the instructions configured to cause the processor system to determine the subset of candidate patterns are further configured to adjust the bounding box around the search pattern based on the search condition associated with the bounding box; and

determine the subset of candidate patterns from the set of candidate patterns that satisfies the search condition associated with the adjusted bounding box.

14. The medium of claim 13 , wherein the instructions configured to cause the processor system to adjust the bounding box are further configured to increase and/or decrease the size of the bounding box relative to increase and/or decrease in the size of the feature of a pattern of the set of patterns and the search condition associated with the bounding box.

15. The medium of claim 1 , wherein the set of patterns comprises a design pattern; and/or comprises an image of patterns of a printed substrate; and/or comprises simulated patterns of the substrate.

16. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions therein, the instructions, when executed by a processor system, configured to cause the processor system to at least:

obtain (i) a set of candidate patterns from a set of patterns based on a search condition associated with features of a search pattern (ii) a bounding box around the search pattern, and (iii) a search condition associated with the bounding box and a feature of the search pattern; and

determine a subset of candidate patterns from the set of candidate patterns based on the search condition associated with the bounding box.

17. The medium of claim 16 , wherein the search condition associated with the bounding box is a distance and/or an angle between the edge of the feature of the search pattern and the edge of the bounding box.

18. The medium of claim 16 , wherein the instructions configured to cause the processor system to determine the subset of candidate patterns are further configured to cause the processor system to:

compare one or more parameters of a feature of the search pattern and corresponding one or more parameters of a feature of the set of patterns; and

select, based on the comparison, a subset of patterns from the set of candidate patterns excluding patterns with topological mismatch.

19. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions therein, the instructions, when executed by a processor system, configured to cause the processor system to at least:

obtain (i) a set of candidate patterns from a set of patterns based on a search condition associated with features of a search pattern, (ii) a bounding box around the search pattern, and (iii) a search condition associated with the bounding box and a feature of the search pattern; and

determine a subset of candidate patterns from the set of candidate patterns based on the search condition associated with the bounding box, wherein the subset of candidate patterns includes a candidate pattern having an extra feature that is not included in the search pattern.

20. The medium of claim 19 , wherein the extra feature is adjacent to a feature of the search pattern and within the bounding box.