US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on May 20 for "Semiconductor device and method of manufacture" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,308,248, issued on May 20, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor device and method of manufacture" was invented by Jian-Jou Lian (Tainan, Taiwan), Chun-Neng Lin (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Chieh-Wei Chen (Taoyuan, Taiwan), Tzu-Ang Chiang (I-lan, Taiwan) and Ming-Hsi Yeh (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a wet etching process to pattern a metal layer such as a p-metal work function layer over a dielectric layer such as a high-k gate dielectric layer, a selectivity of the wet etching solution between the metal layer and the dielectric layer is increased utilizing an inhibitor....