ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,255,150, issued on March 18, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"CMP safe alignment mark" was invented by Huang-Jen Hsu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Jheng-Si Su (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Kung-Ming Liu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Tzuyi Hsieh (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Feng-Inn Wu (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The current disclosure describes techniques for making an alignment mark on a wafer. A recess is etched in a first surface region of a wafer. A device structure is formed in a second surface region of the wafer. A dielectric layer is deposited on the first surface of the wafer and filling the recess. A...