US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on Jan. 28 for "Chemical mechanical polishing apparatus and method" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 29 -- United States Patent no. 12,208,487, issued on Jan. 28, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Chemical mechanical polishing apparatus and method" was invented by Chun-Hsi Huang (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Chia-Lin Hsueh (Zhubei, Taiwan) and Huang-Chu Ko (Miaoli County, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure describes an apparatus and a method to detect a polishing pad profile during a polish process and adjust the polishing process based on the detected profile. The apparatus can include a polishing pad configured to polishing a substrate, a substrate carrier configured to hold the substrate against the polishi...