Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods, apparatus, systems, and computer program products for using an image of an integrated circuit (IC) including a plurality of cells to locate one or more target cells within the IC. Accordingly, in various embodiments, a footprint for each cell of the plurality of cells is encoded to transform the image of the IC into a two-dimensional string matrix. A string search algorithm is then applied on each encoded dopant region found in the two-dimensional string matrix using an encoded target layout cell to identify one or more candidate regions of interest within the image. Finally, a mask window is slid over each candidate region of interest while performing matching using match criteria to identify any target cells in the one or more target cells that are located within the candidate region of interest.