US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on Dec. 9 for "Chemical mechanical polishing apparatus and method" (Taiwanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,491,605, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Chemical mechanical polishing apparatus and method" was invented by Cheng-Chin Peng (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure describes a method and apparatus to remove consumable (e.g., sacrificial) polishing pad layers from a multilayer polishing pad. For example, the method includes measuring a thickness profile of a top polishing pad layer of a multilayer polishing pad and comparing the thickness profile to a threshold. The method, in response to the thickness profile being above the threshold, rinses...