PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16009519
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-06
Publication Date: 2019-12
Patent Classification: ["257", "288000"]

Abstract:
In one exemplary aspect, a method for semiconductor manufacturing comprises forming first and second silicon nitride features on sidewall surfaces of a contact hole, where the contact hole is disposed in a dielectric layer and above a source/drain (S/D) feature. The method further comprises forming a contact plug in the contact hole, the contact plug being electrically coupled to the S/D feature, removing a top portion of the contact plug to create a recess in the contact hole, forming a hard mask layer in the recess, and removing the first and second silicon nitride features via selective etching to form first and second air gaps, respectively.

Claim (Index 7):
The method of  claim 1 , wherein forming the hard mask layer in the recess comprises:\n depositing the hard mask layer; and removing a top portion of the hard mask layer using a chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process, wherein the CMP process exposes top surfaces of the first and second silicon nitride features to facilitate the removal of the first and second silicon nitride features.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 5.0
- Percentile: 94.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.98305
- Patent Class: 257.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: none
- Component Type: 0
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15898706', '15993970', '15882905', '12839994', '15886812']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.9178011550262932
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4839590245465158
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8744169419783154
- Mean Citation Score: 166.13852000000003
- Max Citation Score: 175.30925
- Similarity Product: 122.22674811792372

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

Dataset: test