US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on June 3 for "Semiconductor device and method" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,322,590, issued on June 3, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor device and method" was invented by Ching-Yu Chang (Taipei, Taiwan), Jei Ming Chen (Tainan, Taiwan) and Tze-Liang Lee (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of forming a semiconductor device includes forming a mask layer over a substrate and forming an opening in the mask layer. A gap-filling material is deposited in the opening. A plasma treatment is performed on the gap-filling material. The height of the gap-filling material is reduced. The mask layer is removed. The substrate is patterned using the ...