ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,438,084, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).
"Dual-metal ultra thick metal (UTM) structure" was invented by Hsueh-Chung Chen (Cohoes, N.Y.), Yann Mignot (Slingerlands, N.Y.), Chi-Chun Liu (Altamont, N.Y.), Mary Claire Silvestre (Clifton Park, N.Y.) and Jennifer Oakley (Cohoes, N.Y.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor device includes a conductive line disposed within a dielectric layer, a metal layer disposed over and in direct contact with the conductive line, and a metallization layer disposed over the metal layer such that a protruding segment of the metal layer acts as an i...