ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,261,172, issued on March 25, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor devices and methods of manufacturing thereof" was invented by Ya-Yi Tsai (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Shih-Yao Lin (New Taipei, Taiwan), Chi-Hsiang Chang (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Wei-Han Chen (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Shu-Yuan Ku (Zhubei, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of fabricating a semiconductor device is described. A substrate is provided. A plurality of fins is formed extending from the substrate, the fins including a first group of active fins arranged in an active region, and including an inactive fin having at ...