ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,308,314, issued on May 20, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Metal loss prevention in conductive structures" was invented by Yen-Yu Chen (Taichung, Taiwan) and Chung-Liang Cheng (Changhua County, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure describes a method for forming a barrier structure between liner-free conductive structures and underlying conductive structures. The method includes forming openings in a dielectric layer disposed on a contact layer, where the openings expose conductive structures in the contact layer. A first metal layer is deposited in the openings and i...