ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,742,954, issued on Sept. 22, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).
"Semiconductor inspection tool and methods of operation" was invented by Cheng-Tai Fang (Tainan City, Taiwan), Keng-Ying Liao (Tainan City, Taiwan), Po-Zen Chen (Tainan City, Taiwan), Wei-Cheng Chu (Tainan City, Taiwan) and Chien-Chung Chen (Kaohsiung City, Taiwan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor inspection tool may include a distance monitoring system that is configured to monitor the distance between a microscope of the semiconductor inspection tool and a semiconductor workpiece under inspection. The distance monit...