US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on May 20 for "Metal gate with silicon sidewall spacers" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,310,052, issued on May 20, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Metal gate with silicon sidewall spacers" was invented by Wen-Han Fang (New Taipei, Taiwan) and Po-Chi Wu (Zhubei, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method includes forming an opening in a dielectric to reveal a protruding semiconductor fin, forming a gate dielectric on sidewalls and a top surface of the protruding semiconductor fin, and forming a conductive diffusion barrier layer over the gate dielectric. The conductive diffusion barrier layer extends into the opening. The method further includes forming a silicon layer over...