Mask work

A mask work is a two or three-dimensional layout of an integrated circuit (IC), i.e. the arrangement on a chip of semiconductor devices such as transistors and passive electronic components such as resistors and interconnections. By extension, it also refers to the intellectual property right conferring time-limited exclusivity to a particular layout. The layout is called a mask work because, in photolithographic processes, actual ICs are created from a mask, called the photomask.

Related Topics:
Integrated circuit - Semiconductor devices - Transistor - Electronic - Resistor - Intellectual property - Photolithographic - Photomask

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The United States Code defines a mask work as "a series of related images, however fixed or encoded, having or representing the predetermined, three-dimensional pattern of metallic, insulating, or semiconductor material present or removed from the layers of a semiconductor chip product, and in which the relation of the images to one another is such that each image has the pattern of the surface of one form of the semiconductor chip product" (17 USC § 901 (a) (2)). Mask work exclusive rights were first granted in the US by the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. In Canada these rights are protected under the Integrated Circuit Topography Act (1990, c. 37). Equivalent legislation exists in Australia and Hong Kong.

Related Topics:
United States - Canada - Integrated Circuit Topography Act - Australia - Hong Kong

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