ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 1 -- United States Patent no. 11,972,977, issued on April 30, was assigned to INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).
"Fabrication of rigid close-pitch interconnects" was invented by Chanro Park (Clifton Park, N.Y.), Kenneth Chun Kuen Cheng (Shatin, Hong Kong), Koichi Motoyama (Clifton Park, N.Y.) and Kisik Choi (Watervliet, N.Y.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of forming interconnects is provided. The method includes forming a plurality of mandrels on an interlayer dielectric (ILD) layer. The method further includes forming sidewall spacers on opposite sides of the each mandrel, wherein a portion of the ILD layer is exposed between adjacent sidewall...