PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15986661
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-05
Publication Date: 2019-11
Patent Classification: ["257", "774000"]

Abstract:
An electrically conductive structure in an integrated circuit (IC) includes a bottom metal line and a top metal line with via providing electrical interconnection between the bottom metal line and the top metal line. The via is fully aligned with both the bottom metal line and the top metal line. An electrically conductive material fills an opening formed in a dielectric material to form the via, and the electrically conductive material is directly in contact with the bottom metal line. No diffusion barrier layer and/or liner layer is between the bottom metal line and the via.

Claim (Index 15):
A method of manufacturing an electrically conductive structure, the method comprising:\n receiving a substrate with a first metal line in a first region of the substrate, a selective dielectric layer in a second region outside the first region of the substrate, a conformal dielectric layer on the selective dielectric layer and the first metal line, and an interlayer dielectric over the first metal line, the conformal dielectric layer, and the selective dielectric layer, wherein the conformal dielectric layer has an etch selectivity equal to or greater than about 10:1 with respect to the selective dielectric layer; forming a via through the interlayer dielectric and the conformal dielectric layer to a top surface of the first metal line, wherein the via includes an electrically conductive material directly in contact with the first metal line, wherein the electrically conductive material of the via includes a copper alloy, the copper alloy including copper zinc; and annealing the substrate to form a self-formed barrier layer at an interface between the interlayer dielectric and the via, wherein the self-formed barrier layer includes zinc silicate.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 2.0
- Percentile: 93.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.19149
- Patent Class: 257.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15826393', '14611908', '10657847', '11040366', '15807156']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.9181429963200456
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4936237009563825
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8756910667836793
- Mean Citation Score: 222.917748
- Max Citation Score: 229.74411
- Similarity Product: 166.5727015171659

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