ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,400,976, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Seal structures" was invented by Yen Lian Lai (Taipei, Taiwan) and Chun Yu Chen (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor structure includes a device region and a seal structure surrounding the device region. The seal structure includes an outer ring surrounding the device region and a buffer region disposed between the outer ring and the device region. The buffer region includes a first portion having a number of first gate structures extending lengthwise along a first direction and a second portion havin...