ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,400,871, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).
"Metal lines with low via-to-via spacing" was invented by Daniel James Dechene (Watervliet, N.Y.), Somnath Ghosh (Clifton Park, N.Y.), Hsueh-Chung Chen (Cohoes, N.Y.), Carl Radens (LaGrangeville, N.Y.) and Lawrence A. Clevenger (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method is presented for employing double-patterning to reduce via-to-via spacing. The method includes forming a mandrel layer over a substrate, forming sacrificial hardmask layers over the mandrel layer defining a litho stack, creating a pattern in the litho sta...