US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on May 6 for "Surface oxidation control of metal gates using capping layer" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,293,916, issued on May 6, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Surface oxidation control of metal gates using capping layer" was invented by Pei-Yu Chou (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Tze-Liang Lee (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method includes forming a dummy gate stack on a semiconductor fin, forming gate spacers on sidewalls of the dummy gate stack, forming a first inter-layer dielectric, with the gate spacers and the dummy gate stack being in the first inter-layer dielectric, removing the dummy gate stack to form a trench between the gate spacers, forming a replacement gate stack i...