PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15952634
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-04
Publication Date: 2018-08
Patent Classification: ["438", "694000"]

Abstract:
Provided herein are methods and related apparatus that facilitate patterning by performing highly non-conformal (directional) deposition on patterned structures. The methods involve depositing films on a patterned structure, such as a hard mask. The deposition may be both substrate-selective such that the films have high etch selectivity with respect to an underlying material to be etched and pattern-selective such that the films are directionally deposited to replicate the pattern of the patterned structure. In some embodiments, the deposition is performed in the same chamber as a subsequent etch is performed. In some embodiments, the deposition may be performed in a separate chamber (e.g., a PECVD deposition chamber) that is connected to the etch chamber by a vacuum transfer chamber. The deposition may be performed prior to or at selected intermittences during at etch process. In some embodiments, the deposition involves multiple cycles of a deposition and treatment process.

Claim (Index 11):
A method comprising:\n depositing a material on a patterned structure in a multi-cycle deposition process, wherein the patterned structure comprises raised features having features tops, feature bottoms, and feature sidewalls connecting the feature tops and feature bottoms, and wherein in each cycle comprises: i) depositing by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process a first material non-conformally on the patterned structure such that a ratio of the thickness of the first material on a feature top to the thickness of the first material on a feature bottom is greater than 1; and ii) after depositing the first material, exposing the first material to a plasma capable of etching the first material.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 65.0
- Percentile: 91.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.02469
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15225489', '14697521', '15364101', '12631691', '14560414']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8612806172259839
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.47877445694341
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8230300011977266
- Mean Citation Score: 181.062424
- Max Citation Score: 187.15819
- Similarity Product: 138.55680007362662

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