US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on March 11 for "Detecting damaged semiconductor wafers utilizing a semiconductor wafer sorter tool of an automated materials handling system" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,249,526, issued on March 11, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Detecting damaged semiconductor wafers utilizing a semiconductor wafer sorter tool of an automated materials handling system" was invented by Chen Min Lin (Keelung, Taiwan) and Hsien Tse Chen (New Taipei, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A device may detect a semiconductor wafer to be transferred from a source wafer carrier to a target wafer carrier, and may cause a light source to illuminate the semiconductor wafer. The device may cause a camera to capture images of the semiconductor wafer after the light source illuminates...