ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,278,178, issued on April 15, was assigned to GlobalFoundries U.S. Inc. (Malta, N.Y.).
"Fuse element for process-induced damage protection structure" was invented by Michael J. Hauser (Albany, N.Y.) and Michael J. Zierak (Colchester, Vt.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An integrated circuit (IC) structure includes a transistor in a device layer over a substrate, the transistor including a gate; and a plurality of interconnect layers over the device layer, the plurality of interconnect layers including a last metal layer. A process-induced damage (PID) protection structure includes a conductor coupling the gate to a well in the substrate but...