ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,380,957, issued on Aug. 5, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Memory device, layout, and method" was invented by Hsiang-Wei Liu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Andy Yang (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Yao-Jen Yang (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An integrated circuit (IC) device includes transistor and programmable structure regions. The transistor region includes a source structure configured to receive a reference voltage, a first portion of a drain structure, and a gate electrode positioned between the source structure and the first portion of the drain structure, and configured to receive an ...