PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15950391
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-04
Publication Date: 2018-09
Patent Classification: ["438", "758000"]

Abstract:
Techniques are disclosed for methods and apparatuses for performing continuous-flow plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD). Plasma gas, containing one or more component gases, is continuously flowed to a planar inductive coupled plasma source attached at an upper end of a cylindrical chamber. Plasma is separated from the ALD volume surrounding a wafer/substrate in the lower end of the chamber by a combination of a grounded metal plate and a ceramic plate. Each plate has a number of mutually aligned holes. The ceramic plate has holes with a diameter less than 2 Debye lengths and has a large aspect ratio. This prevents damaging plasma flux from entering the ALD volume into which a gaseous metal precursor is also pulsed. The self-limiting ALD reaction involving the heated substrate, the excited neutrals from the plasma gas, and the metal precursor produce an ultra-uniform, high quality film on the wafer. A batch configuration to simultaneously coat multiple wafers is also disclosed.

Claim (Index 1):
A batch atomic layer deposition (ALD) system comprising:\n (a) a plurality of horizontal substrate modules stacked in a batch chamber, each of said substrate modules comprising a heated substrate; (b) a remote plasma source for continuously generating a plasma from a gas A, said plasma source connected to a grounded metal plate and a ceramic plate, said metal plate and said ceramic plate having a first plurality of holes and a second plurality of holes respectively such that each of said first plurality of holes is aligned with a corresponding hole of said second plurality of holes, and each of said second plurality of holes having a diameter less than two Debye lengths of said plasma; (c) said gas A continuously delivered to said remote plasma source, and said plasma terminated by said metal plate such that excited neutrals from said plasma pass through said first plurality of holes and through said second plurality of holes to be continuously delivered into said batch chamber above said substrate in each of said substrate modules; and (d) a pulse of a gas B passed above said substrate in each of said substrate modules, each of said gas A and said gas B comprising one or more individual chemical species; wherein said excited neutrals, said gas B and said substrate in each of said substrate modules react in a self-limiting manner to produce an atomically sized film on said substrate in each of said substrate modules.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 7.0
- Percentile: 91.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.60185
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15950330', '15458642', '13656483', '13337728', '13337759']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8648069085892774
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5318458757509075
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8315108053054404
- Mean Citation Score: 272.21409800000004
- Max Citation Score: 366.86307
- Similarity Product: 303.26701555436256

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

Dataset: test