ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,293,922, issued on May 6, was assigned to NANYA TECHNOLOGY Corp. (New Taipei, Taiwan).

"Reworking process of a failed hard mask for fabricating a semiconductor device" was invented by Wei-Chen Pan (New Taipei, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present application provides a reworking method of a failed hard mask layer on a via opening in a dielectric layer, including removing the failed hard mask layer; forming an underfill layer to fill the via opening; forming a top hard mask layer on the underfill layer; and forming a mask layer on the top hard mask layer."

The patent was filed on March 31, 2022, under Application No. 17/709,...