Deployment of OASIS in the semiconductor industry: status, dependencies, and outlook

The OASIS working group was first initiated in 2001, published the new format in March 2004, which was ratified as an official SEMI standard in September 2005. A follow-on initiative expanded the new standard to cover the needs of the mask manufacturing equipment sector with a derived standard called OASIS.MASK (P44) that was released in November 2005 and updated in May 2008. While there are many potential benefits from this improved format over the incumbent GDSII and MEBES standards, the main driver for the development of the OASIS format was the looming data volume explosion from the onward march of processing and design technology. With a demonstrated benefit of roughly 10x over the GDSII format, it was expected that the new OASIS format would be embraced quickly by the semiconductor industry. In reality, the adoption process took significantly longer and is still in progress. The paper analyzes the data volume and adoption trends by manufacturing steps - e.g design, post tapeout flow and mask manufacturing. Survey results on the adoption status are shared and an analysis of the technical, economic, and environmental factors influencing it will be discussed.