The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 23, 1999
Filed:
Jul. 10, 1997
Applicant:
Inventor:
Chin-Kai Liu, Taichung, TW;
Assignee:
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Hsin-Chu, TW;
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01N / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
250307 ; 250304 ; 216 38 ; 216 39 ; 20419234 ;
Abstract
The present invention discloses a method for preparing thin specimens suitable for physical analysis of a semiconductor microstructure by an instrument such as a transmission electron microscope. The method can be practiced by first forming support structures in a low density material medium for shielding a higher density material to be analyzed such that materials having different densities may be removed in a subsequent ion milling process at approximately the same milling rate with the lower density material supporting the higher density material during the ion milling process.