ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 27 -- United States Patent no. 12,777,698, issued on Oct. 27, was assigned to International Business Machines Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).
"Via formation adjacent a middle-of-line contact" was invented by Ruilong Xie (Niskayuna, N.Y.), Carl Radens (LaGrangeville, N.Y.), Lawrence A. Clevenger (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.), Huimei Zhou (Albany, N.Y.) and Tao Li (Slingerlands, N.Y.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor device comprises a contact electrically connected to a source/drain region of a transistor and to a gate region of the transistor. A via is disposed along a side of the contact, wherein the via comprises a conductive material. A dielectric liner layer is dispose...