US Patent Issued to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING on Feb. 17 for "Semiconductor devices with fin-top hard mask and methods for fabrication thereof" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,557,317, issued on Feb. 17, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor devices with fin-top hard mask and methods for fabrication thereof" was invented by Yi-Ruei Jhan (New Taipei, Taiwan), Kuan-Ting Pan (Hsinchu County, Taiwan), Kuo-Cheng Chiang (Changhua County, Taiwan), Kuan-Lun Cheng (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Chih-Hao Wang (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure provides a method for using a hard mask layer on a top surface of fin structures to form a fin-top mask layer. The fin-top mask layer can function as an etch stop for subsequent processes. Using...