US Patent Issued to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING on Jan. 13 for "Exposure method and exposure apparatus" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,523,942, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Exposure method and exposure apparatus" was invented by Yung-Yao Lee (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Heng-Hsin Liu (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Hung-Ming Kuo (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and Jui-Chun Peng (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a method executed in an exposure apparatus, a focus control effective region and a focus control exclusion region are set based on an exposure map and a chip area layout within an exposure area. Focus-leveling data are measured over a wafer. A photo resist layer on the wafer is exposed with an exposure light. ...