US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on June 23 for "Transistor contacts and methods of forming the same" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,666,667, issued on June 23, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Transistor contacts and methods of forming the same" was invented by Hung-Yu Yen (Taipei, Taiwan) and Keng-Chu Lin (Ping-Tung, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In an embodiment, a method includes: forming a sacrificial spacer in a contact opening, the contact opening exposing a source/drain region; depositing a spacer layer on a sidewall of the sacrificial spacer and on a top surface of the source/drain region; forming a protective dielectric on the spacer layer and in the contact opening; removing the sacrificial spacer to fo...