Abstract: A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, comprising providing design data, producing lithography masks based on the design data, predicting a product process window and producing a wafer including semiconductor structures by means of the lithography masks and observing conditions defined by the product process window.

Abstract: A method of manufacturing semiconductor devices employing optical proximity correction (OPC) is provided including providing a design layout of masks, performing OPC on the design layout to obtain a post OPC layout, performing post chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) topography simulations of a wafer to obtain the surface topography of the wafer, calculating a focus shift of a nominal focus caused by the surface topography of the wafer to obtain a shifted nominal focus, determining a process window based on the shifted nominal focus, simulating a nominal image based on the post OPC layout and the shifted nominal focus and process window images based on the post OPC layout and the process window, and identifying hotspots based on the simulated nominal and process window images.