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:
Oct. 23, 2001
Filed:
May. 14, 1999
Tammy Zheng, Fremont, CA (US);
KoninKlijke Philips Electronics N.V. (KPENV), Eindhoven, NL;
Abstract
According to an example embodiment, the present invention is directed to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. The device includes a conductive underlayer. A sub-micron via or contact path and a dummy via or dummy contact path are dry etched. The endpoint of the dry etching process is optically detected, and the etching process is stopped responsive to the detection of the endpoint. By etching a dummy via or contact in addition to the submicron via or contact, this example embodiment facilitates endpoint detection for dry etching sub-micron features in semiconductor devices, which is otherwise difficult or even impossible in the submicron regime.