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:
May. 01, 2007
Filed:
Dec. 16, 2005
Jed H. Rankin, South Burlington, VT (US);
Andrew J. Watts, Essex Junction, VT (US);
Jed H. Rankin, South Burlington, VT (US);
Andrew J. Watts, Essex Junction, VT (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method is provided for patterning a substrate. In such method a first mask, for example, a front-end-of-line ('FEOL') mask is fabricated, the first mask including a plurality of first features such as FEOL features which are usable to pattern regular elements and redundancy elements of a substrate such as a microelectronic substrate and/or a micro-electromechanical substrate. The first mask is tested, i.e., inspected for defects in the features. Thereafter, a second sequentially used mask, for example, a back-end-of-line ('BEOL') mask is fabricated which includes a plurality of second features, e.g., BEOL features, such features being usable to pattern a plurality of interconnections between individual ones of the regular elements and between the regular elements and the redundancy elements. The regular elements and the redundancy elements are patterned using the first mask and the interconnections between them are patterned using the second mask. As a result, the interconnections are patterned in a way that corrects for the detected defects in the first mask.