US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on April 8 for "Capping structure to reduce dark current in image sensors" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,272,716, issued on April 8, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Capping structure to reduce dark current in image sensors" was invented by Po-Chun Liu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Chung-Yi Yu (Hsin-Chu, Taiwan) and Eugene Chen (Taipei, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In some embodiments, a method for forming a semiconductor device is provided. The method includes etching a substrate to form a recess within a surface of the substrate. An epitaxial material is formed within the recess, a capping structure is formed on the epitaxial material, and a capping layer is formed onto the capping structure. T...