ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,416,074, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"PVD system and collimator" was invented by Kuan-Lin Chen (New Taipei, Taiwan), Tsung-Yi Chou (Changhua County, Taiwan), Wei-Der Sun (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Hao-Wei Kang (Taoyuan County, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A physical vapor deposition (PVD) system includes: a pedestal configured to accommodate a semiconductor wafer; a cover plate above the pedestal configured to hold a target; and a collimator disposed above the pedestal and below the cover plate. The collimator has an upper surface and a lower surface. The lower s...