US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on Sept. 16 for "Hybrid film scheme for self-aligned contact" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,417,948, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Hybrid film scheme for self-aligned contact" was invented by Jian-Hong Lu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Tsai-Jung Ho (Xihu Township, Taiwan), Bor Chiuan Hsieh (Taoyuan, Taiwan), Po-Cheng Shih (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Tze-Liang Lee (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of forming a semiconductor device includes: forming a fin protruding above a substrate; forming a metal gate over the fin, the metal gate being surround by a dielectric layer; etching the metal gate to reduce a height of the metal gate, where after the etching,...