US Patent Issued to APPLIED MATERIALS on June 10 for "Two-dimension self-aligned scheme with subtractive metal etch" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,327,764, issued on June 10, was assigned to APPLIED MATERIALS Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Two-dimension self-aligned scheme with subtractive metal etch" was invented by Yung-chen Lin (Gardena, Calif.), Chi-I Lang (Cupertino, Calif.) and Ho-yung Hwang (Cupertino, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods for formation of a layer stack during a back-end-of-line (BEOL) process flow and the layer stack formed therefrom are provided. In one or more embodiments, the method utilizes a two-dimensional (2D) self-aligned scheme with a subtractive metal etch. The method includes using a hard mask to form a via with a small width which is forme...