PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16040859
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-07
Publication Date: 2020-01
Patent Classification: ["216", "063000"]

Abstract:
An etching process is provided that includes a pre-clean process to remove a surface oxide of a dielectric material. The removal of the oxide can be executed through a thermal reaction and/or plasma process before the etch process. In some embodiments, the removal of the oxide increases etch process control and reproducibility and can improve the selectivity versus oxides.

Claim (Index 5):
The process of  claim 4 , wherein pre-cleaning is sufficient to achieve at least one of the following: a) superior etch profile control, b) enhanced etch selectivity between different dielectric materials and oxides, c) consistent etch thickness per cycle of cyclic dry etching, d) cyclic etching of SiN, SiC, and SiCOH, with selectivity of etching between each, or e) reduced surface and sidewall roughness.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 70.0
- Percentile: 95.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.5
- Patent Class: 216.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: none
- Component Type: 0
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['10273580', '15225489', '13614365', '15923722', '12174402']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7479640333977028
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5056633990250677
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7237339699604394
- Mean Citation Score: 208.13785
- Max Citation Score: 223.28867
- Similarity Product: 141.2185166205406

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

Dataset: test