US Patent Issued to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING on Aug. 26 for "Etching methods for integrated circuits" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,400,873, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Etching methods for integrated circuits" was invented by Chia-Yi Chiang (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Chien-Sheng Wu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Chih-Hsien Hsu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Chia-Hao Chang (Taichung, Taiwan) and Tai-Pin Chuang (Tainan, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for etching a tungsten silicide (WSix) layer during formation of a gate electrode in an integrated circuit is disclosed. The method uses an etchant gas comprising nitrogen gas (N2) and oxygen gas (O2) in a specified flow ratio. The etchant gas may also comprise chl...