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 1):
An apparatus comprising:\n a first dielectric layer; a first metal line formed in the first dielectric layer; a second dielectric layer over the first metal line and the first dielectric layer; a second metal line formed in the second dielectric layer or over the second dielectric layer; a via extending through the second dielectric layer and electrically connecting the first metal line and the second metal line, wherein the via is fully aligned with the first metal line and the second metal line, and wherein the via includes an electrically conductive material directly in contact with the first metal line; and a self-formed barrier layer at an interface between the second dielectric layer and the via, wherein the electrically conductive material of the via includes a copper alloy, wherein the copper alloy includes copper zinc and 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): 0.9178855075008274
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4972540114483261
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8758223578955773
- Mean Citation Score: 222.917748
- Max Citation Score: 229.74411
- Similarity Product: 159.02073997649254

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

Dataset: test