ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,341,057, issued on June 24, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsin-Chu, Taiwan).
"Interconnect line for semiconductor device" was invented by Chung-Wen Wu (Zhubei, Taiwan), Chih-Yuan Ting (Taipei, Taiwan) and Jyu-Horng Shieh (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A via opening including an etch stop layer (ESL) opening and methods of forming the same are provided which can be used in the back end of line (BEOL) process of IC fabrication. A metal feature is provided with a first part within a dielectric layer and with a top surface. An ESL is formed with a bottom surface of the ESL above and in contact ...