ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,512,417, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to Imec vzw (Leuven, Belgium).
"Method and structure for determining an overlay error" was invented by Waikin Li (Leuven, Belgium), Zheng Tao (Heverlee, Belgium) and Min-Soo Kim (Kessel-Lo, Belgium).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor structure includes a device area that includes a first structure in a first layer having a top surface above a top surface of the first layer, and a second structure in a second layer on top of the first layer, where the first structure is pinned in the second structure; an overlay metrology area for optically evaluating an overlay error between the second ...