US Patent Issued to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING on March 17 for "Etch monitoring and performing" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,581,916, issued on March 17, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Etch monitoring and performing" was invented by Wei-De Ho (Hsinchu City, Taiwan), Pei-Sheng Tang (Taipei, Taiwan), Han-Wei Wu (Tainan City, Taiwan), Yuan-Hsiang Lung (Hsinchu City, Taiwan), Hua-Tai Lin (Hsinchu City, Taiwan) and Chen-Jung Wang (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a method of patterning an integrated circuit, test layer thickness variation data is received when a test layer with a known thickness disposed over a test substrate undergoes tilted angle plasma etching. Overlay offset data per substra...