PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15887819
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-02
Publication Date: 2019-05
Patent Classification: ["257", "384000"]

Abstract:
The present disclosure relates generally to techniques for forming a continuous adhesion layer for a contact plug. A method includes forming an opening through a dielectric layer to an active area on a substrate. The method includes performing a first plasma treatment along a sidewall of the opening. The method includes performing an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process to form a metal nitride layer along the sidewall of the opening. The ALD process includes a plurality of cycles. Each cycle includes flowing a precursor to form a metal monolayer along the sidewall and performing a second plasma treatment to treat the metal monolayer with nitrogen. The method includes depositing a conductive material on the metal nitride layer in the opening to form a conductive feature.

Claim (Index 16):
A method comprising:\n forming a fin on a substrate; forming a gate structure over the fin; forming a dielectric layer over the fin; forming an opening through the dielectric layer to a source/drain region of the fin proximate the gate structure; and forming a conductive feature in the opening, wherein forming the conductive feature comprises:\n performing a first plasma treatment along side surfaces and a bottom of the opening to form a nitrogen pretreatment layer; and \n forming an adhesion layer on the nitrogen pretreatment layer along the side surfaces and the bottom of the opening, wherein the adhesion layer is formed by an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process comprising a plurality of cycles, each cycle including;\n flowing a precursor to form a first monolayer on the nitrogen pretreatment layer along the side surfaces and the bottom of the opening, the first monolayer comprising a monolayer metal; and \n performing a second plasma treatment to treat the first monolayer with nitrogen radicals to form a metal nitride layer; and \n \n filling the opening with a conductive material deposited on the adhesion layer; \n wherein a first nitrogen region overlaps a boundary between the dielectric layer and the adhesion layer, the first nitrogen region having a first nitrogen concentration gradient and a first titanium concentration gradient extending from the dielectric layer to the adhesion layer, wherein the first nitrogen concentration gradient intersects the first titanium concentration gradient.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 50.0
- Percentile: 88.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.19672
- Patent Class: 257.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15815059', '15802729', '15613485', '15825533', '15691871']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.9119001729413192
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4684995507733877
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8675601107245262
- Mean Citation Score: 181.240564
- Max Citation Score: 199.15573
- Similarity Product: 167.6850664320004

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