US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on July 1 for "Semiconductor device and methods of formation" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,347,689, issued on July 1, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor device and methods of formation" was invented by Hsu Ming Hsiao (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Hong Pin Lin (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Spacer layers on sidewalls of a dummy gate structure included in a semiconductor device are trimmed or etched prior to or during a replacement gate process in which the dummy gate structure is replaced with a replacement gate structure. A radical surface treatment operation is performed to etch the spacer layers, which is a type of plasma treatment in which radicals are gener...