US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on Aug. 26 for "Lithography system and methods" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,399,440, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Lithography system and methods" was invented by Chen-Pin Cheng (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Tsun-Cheng Tang (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Guo-Chih Yen (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method includes: placing a mask on a mask stage; placing a pellicle assembly on a pellicle stage, the pellicle assembly including a pellicle; determining whether a defect level of the pellicle is less than a selected value by scanning the pellicle by a first optical detector; forming a protected mask assembly by mounting the pellicle assembly to the ma...