ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,306,542, issued on May 20, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Immersion exposure tool" was invented by Yung-Yao Lee (Zhubei, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A bottom lens for an immersion exposure tool includes a hydrophobic coating on the sidewalls of the bottom lens. A bottom portion of the bottom lens is not coated with the hydrophobic coating to maintain the optical performance of the bottom lens and to not distort a pattern that is to be transferred to a substrate. The hydrophobic coating may reduce the thermal instability of the bottom lens. This may reduce overlay variation during...