PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16025566
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-07
Publication Date: 2018-10
Patent Classification: ["134", "021000"]

Abstract:
Disclosed herein are systems and methods for treating the surface of a microelectronic substrate, and in particular, relate to an apparatus and method for scanning the microelectronic substrate through a cryogenic fluid mixture used to treat an exposed surface of the microelectronic substrate. The fluid mixture may be expanded through a nozzle to form an aerosol spray or gas cluster jet (GCJ) spray may impinge the microelectronic substrate and remove particles from the microelectronic substrate's surface. In one embodiment, the fluid mixture may be maintained to prevent liquid formation within the fluid mixture prior to passing the fluid mixture through the nozzle. The fluid mixture may include nitrogen, argon, helium, neon, xenon, krypton, carbon dioxide, or any combination thereof.

Claim (Index 23):
A method of treating a microelectronic substrate, comprising the steps of:\n positioning the microelectronic substrate in a process chamber, wherein the microelectronic substrate has a substrate surface and wherein the process chamber is maintained at a chamber pressure of 35 Torr or less providing a first pressurized and cooled liquid/gas mixture that is maintained at a pressure in the range from 50 psig to 800 psig and a temperature in the range from 70 K to 270 K in a manner such that the first pressurized and cooled liquid/gas mixture is in a gaseous phase and a liquid phase and wherein less than 1 weight percent of the first pressurized and cooled liquid/gas is in the liquid phase; providing a second pressurized and cooled liquid/gas mixture that is maintained at a pressure in the range from 50 psig to 800 psig and a temperature in the range from 70 K to 270 K in a manner such that the second pressurized and cooled liquid/gas mixture is in a gaseous phase and a liquid phase and wherein at least 10 weight percent of the second pressurized and cooled liquid/gas is in the liquid phase; expanding the first pressurized and cooled liquid/gas mixture into the process chamber in a manner effective to remove particle contamination from the substrate surface; and expanding the second pressurized and cooled liquid/gas mixture into the process chamber in a manner effective to remove particle contamination from the substrate surface.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 2.0
- Percentile: 95.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.86301
- Patent Class: 134.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14876242', '14876214', '15197450', '15681105', '15078338']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8765553118676346
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.563731895450328
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.845272970225904
- Mean Citation Score: 396.094512
- Max Citation Score: 465.3694
- Similarity Product: 384.2633842546582

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