US Patent Issued to INTERATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES on March 4 for "Selective patterning of vias with hardmasks" (New York Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,243,771, issued on March 4, was assigned to INTERATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).

"Selective patterning of vias with hardmasks" was invented by John C. Arnold (North Chatham, N.Y.), Ashim Dutta (Clifton Park, N.Y.), Dominik Metzler (Clifton Park, N.Y.), Timothy M. Philip (Albany, N.Y.) and Sagarika Mukesh (Albany, N.Y.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods and structures for forming vias are provided. The method includes forming a structure that includes an odd line hardmask and an even line hardmask. The odd line hardmask and the even line hardmask include different hardmask materials that have different etch selectivity...