PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15992598
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-05
Publication Date: 2019-12
Patent Classification: ["257", "384000"]

Abstract:
Embodiments disclosed herein relate generally to methods for forming recesses in epitaxial source/drain regions for forming conductive features. In some embodiments, the recesses are formed in a two-step etching process including an anisotropic etch to form a vertical opening and an isotropic etch to expand an end portion of the vertical opening laterally and vertically. The recesses can have increased contact area between the source/drain region and the conductive feature, and can enable reduced resistance therebetween.

Claim (Index 19):
The method of  claim 16 , wherein anisotropically etching through the dielectric layer comprises performing a dry etch process using an etchant including at least one of carbon tetrafluoride (CF 4 ), trifluoromethane (CHF 3 ), nitrogen trifluoride (NF 3 ), sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6 ), hexafluorobutadiene (C 4 F 6 ), and octafluorocyclobutane (C 4 F 8 ), chlorine gas (Cl 2 ), hydrogen bromide (HBr), or a combination thereof.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 2.0
- Percentile: 93.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.44643
- Patent Class: 257.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: none
- Component Type: 0
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15909838', '15825533', '15966858', '15598717', '15684088']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.901811870112906
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.490347448613341
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8606654279629495
- Mean Citation Score: 162.06662
- Max Citation Score: 180.37837
- Similarity Product: 128.30690035379408

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test