US Patent Issued to International Business Machines on June 24 for "Copper interconnects with self-aligned hourglass-shaped metal cap" (Chinese, American Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,341,100, issued on June 24, was assigned to International Business Machines Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).

"Copper interconnects with self-aligned hourglass-shaped metal cap" was invented by Koichi Motoyama (Clifton Park, N.Y.), Chanro Park (Clifton Park, N.Y.), Kenneth Chun Kuen Cheng (Shatin, Hong Kong) and Chih-Chao Yang (Glenmont, N.Y.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A copper interconnect with self-aligned hourglass-shaped metal cap comprises a plurality of interconnect lines formed in a dielectric layer of a semiconductor device. The copper interconnect further comprises a metal cap formed on top of each interconnect line of the plurality of ...