US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on May 19 for "Semiconductor processing tool and methods of operation" (Taiwanese, American Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,635,440, issued on May 19, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor processing tool and methods of operation" was invented by Ji Cui (Bolingbrook, Ill.), Chih Hung Chen (Hsinchu City, Taiwan), Liang-Guang Chen (Hsinchu City, Taiwan) and Kei-Wei Chen (Tainan City, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor processing tool includes a cleaning chamber configured to perform a post-chemical mechanical polishing/planarization (post-CMP) cleaning operation in an oxygen-free (or in a near oxygen-free) manner. An inert gas may be provided into the cleaning chamber to remove oxygen fro...