US Patent Issued to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING on Jan. 27 for "Fin field effect transistor (FinFET) having hourglass-shaped via structure on source/drain and method for forming the same" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,538,777, issued on Jan. 27, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Fin field effect transistor (FinFET) having hourglass-shaped via structure on source/drain and method for forming the same" was invented by Te-Chih Hsiung (Taipei, Taiwan), Jyun-De Wu (New Taipei, Taiwan), Yi-Chun Chang (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Yi-Chen Wang (Hsinchu County, Taiwan) and Yuan-Tien Tu (Chiayi County, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor structure includes a contact plug on a source/drain region of a transistor, and a via on the contact plug. The via includes a lower portion and an upper portion over the...