ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,444,580, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Plasma processing apparatus and method" was invented by Chih-Hao Chen (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Chung Chuan Huang (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Yi-Tsang Hsieh (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Yu-Chi Lin (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Cha-Hsin Chao (Taipei, Taiwan) and Che-En Tsai (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus for performing a process is disclosed. An apparatus includes a chamber configured to receive a wafer for an etching process; a conductive focus ring disposed within the chamber and configured to focus an elec...