Thanks to everyone who answered my questions regarding increasing postscript output resolution for Ledit. It seems that convertors are a common thing, both home-made and commercial. I haven't had a chance to try all of these programsm but I've summarized those that were suggested below. The most common program suggested PostCIF/linkCAD. PostCIF was a shareware program developed by Daniel Gehriger, it has since been commercialized under the product name linkCAD ($500). Jason Cole was kind enough to pass my question along to Daniel Gehriger, who replied with the following response concerning linkCAD's resolution: > The theoretical resolution is always 0.001 microns, or 25'400'000 dpi. > > PostScript calculates in 72dpi units. To convert from nanomters to 1/72 > inches, LinkCAD tells the PostScript processor to multiply the units by > 2.83464566929E-6. The calculation is done with very high precision and the > actual limiting factor is the printer's resolution. > > If the printer has a resolution of 4800 dpi, the minimum feature size and > the maximum error would be approx. 5.29 microns. The annoying thing is when > you have repeated structures (comb structures), alignment masks and so on. > Because 1/4800 is not an integer multiple of 0.001 microns, you'll get an > interference pattern, which will offset your structure by 5.29 microns at > every wavelength. > > >From the enclosed spreadsheet you'll find that the wavelength at 4800 dpi is > roughly 84mm (depends on how you round, this only gives an > approximation, if you round down, you'll get 42mm). So, if for instance you > have a comb structure, you'll get nice digits (even though with an error of > 5.29 microns) - but after approx 80mm you'll get an offset of one dot. > Annoying. You'll say, no problem - 80mm is large enough. Correct, but you > don't know where the absolute zero of the printer is. It may happen anywhere > on your design. > > Your friend will be able to make masks with a precision of 5.3 microns, but > if he relies on alignement and repetitive structures he'll definitely meet > Moiré. It's not a limitation of LinkCAD, it's the result of you calculating > in inches and we in meters... Even if I changed the internal units to > something like mils, this would only help if you drew your design in mils > and exported it in a format supporting mils (*NOT* GDS-II, *NOT* CIF - they > are both metric. Only DXF because it doesn't have units). > > Just a note at the end: the spreadsheet seems to say that it is better to > use a low resolution printer as the wavelength goes up. Well, yes you get > less interference, but you'll have a larger error, too. > > I wonder why L-Edit limits output resolution. They probably wanted to speed > up the PostScript processing in the printer. > > Regards, > > Daniel > > P.S. Bay Technolgy has evaluation copies of LinkCAD, so he can try it out > for 30 days. > Internet addresses for PostCIF and linkCAD are: PostCIF- http://dmtwww.epfl.ch/~dgehrige/postcif.html linkCAD- http://www.bay-technology.com/linkcad.htm Another commercial program that was mentioned was LASI. This one seems to be one of the cheaper commercial ones around ($100). It also includes some CAD software for editing. LASI- http://www.engboi.uidaho.edu/lan-group/jbaker/wwwbook/book.htm The next commercial program suggested was Xchange ($795). Apparently it works quite well. A demo is available at: Xchange- http://www.neostech.com A free program was written by Justin Mansell. It is available at: cif2ps- http://www.wavefrontsciences.com under the Micro-Optics category The last downloadable program was in perl code. It was written by Timothy Pfafman. It can be found at: perl code- http://micromachine.stanford.edu/~tep/software/cif2ps/ Several others offered to provide me with their own code if I could find nothing else. It seems there is no shortage of knowledge in this area. Other suggestions included using various graphics programs to read in Thank you's go out once again to all of those who sent responses. I hope this helps out some other people as well. -- Michael Colgan University of Alberta- MicroFab #318 Newton Research Bldg. Edmonton, AB Canada T6G 2G7 Telephone: (780) 492-5570 Ext. 273 Fax: (780) 492-1643 e-mail: mikec@amc.ab.ca