ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,237,224, issued on Feb. 25, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Semiconductor device and method" was invented by Wei-Ren Wang (New Taipei, Taiwan), Jen Hung Wang (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Tze-Liang Lee (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An improved method of forming conductive features and a semiconductor device formed by the same are disclosed. In an embodiment, a method includes forming a metal line extending through a first dielectric layer, the metal line being electrically coupled to a transistor; selectively depositing a sacrificial material over the metal line; selectively depos...