ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,315,811, issued on May 27, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING Co. LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Graphene barrier layer for reduced contact resistance" was invented by Shin-Yi Yang (New Taipei, Taiwan), Ming-Han Lee (Taipei, Taiwan) and Shau-Lin Shue (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method includes forming a trench within a dielectric layer, the trench comprising an interconnect portion and a via portion, the via portion exposing an underlying conductive feature. The method further includes depositing a seed layer within the trench, depositing a carbon layer on the seed layer, performing a carbon dissolution pr...