US Patent Issued to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING on March 17 for "Mask characterization methods" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,578,270, issued on March 17, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Mask characterization methods" was invented by Chien-Cheng Chen (Hsinchu County, Taiwan), Ping-Hsun Lin (New Taipei City, Taiwan), Huan-Ling Lee (Hsinchu County, Taiwan), Ta-Cheng Lien (Hsinchu County, Taiwan), Chia-Jen Chen (Hsinchu County, Taiwan) and Hsin-Chang Lee (Hsinchu County, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A mask characterization method comprises measuring an interference signal of a reflection or transmission mask for use in lithography; and determining a quality metric for the reflection or transmission mask...