ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,334,431, issued on June 17, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Semiconductor interconnection structures and methods of forming the same" was invented by Kai-Fang Cheng (Taoyuan, Taiwan) and Hsiao-Kang Chang (Taoyuan, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A first dielectric layer is formed on a semiconductor structure. The first dielectric layer has a hardness higher than 10 GPa and a dielectric constant in a range between 1.0 and 4.0. A trench is formed in the first dielectric layer. A conductive feature is formed in the trench in contact with the semiconductor structure. A second dielectr...