ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,354,975, issued on July 8, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Guard ring structure" was invented by Min-Feng Ku (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Yao-Chun Chuang (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Cheng-Chien Li (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Ching-Pin Lin (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Integrated circuit (IC) structures and methods for forming the same are provided. An IC structure according to the present disclosure includes a substrate, an interconnect structure over the substrate, a guard ring structure disposed in the interconnect structure, a via structure vertically extending through the guard ring structu...