ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,364,049, issued on July 15, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor device" was invented by Yu-Chien Ku (Tainan, Taiwan), Huai-Jen Tung (Tainan, Taiwan), Keng-Ying Liao (Tainan, Taiwan), Yi-Hung Chen (Kaohsiung, Taiwan), Shih-Hsun Hsu (New Taipei, Taiwan) and Yi-Fang Yang (Tainan, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor device includes a single-layered dielectric layer, a conductive line, a conductive via and a conductive pad. The conductive line and the conductive via are disposed in the single-layered dielectric layer. The conductive pad is extended into the single-lay...