ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,684,822, issued on July 14, was assigned to WINBOND ELECTRONICS CORP. (Taichung City, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor structure and method of forming the same" was invented by Po-Yen Hsu (Taichung City, Taiwan), Bo-Lun Wu (Taichung City, Taiwan) and Tse-Mian Kuo (New Taipei City, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor structure and a method of forming the same are provided. The semiconductor structure includes a substrate, a floating gate, a dielectric stack, a control gate, and a protective layer. The substrate includes an active region and a peripheral region. The floating gate is disposed on the substrate. The dielectric stack ...