PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16039867
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-07
Publication Date: 2019-05
Patent Classification: ["438", "710000"]

Abstract:
Provided is a substrate processing method capable of preventing over-etching of a part of a stair-case structure due to an etching solution, when a barrier layer is selectively formed on a VNAND device having the stair-case structure. The substrate processing method includes: alternately stacking a first insulating layer and a second insulating layer; forming a stepped structure having an upper surface, a lower surface, and a side surface connecting the upper surface to the lower surface by etching the first insulating layer and the second insulating layer that are stacked; densifying the stepped structure; forming a barrier layer on the densified second insulating layer; and performing isotropic etching on at least a part of a sacrificial word line structure including the second insulating layer and the barrier layer. During etching the barrier layer at the isotropic etching step, the second insulating layer is not etched or etched a little to an ignorable degree.

Claim (Index 14):
The substrate processing method of  claim 1 , further comprising:\n forming an interlayer insulating layer on the sacrificial word line structure; removing the sacrificial word line structure; and forming a conductive word line structure in a corresponding space from which the sacrificial word line structure is removed, wherein the conductive word line structure comprises:\n a first conductive layer extending towards a channel; and \n a second conductive layer on the first conductive layer, \n wherein the densifying of the stepped structure is performed by a plasma process, and in the first conductive layer, a part contacting the second conductive layer has a thickness that is less than a thickness of a remaining part of the first conductive layer.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 5.0
- Percentile: 95.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.3913
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15640239', '15951644', '14156781', '13238084', '14790724']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8317165204766626
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5147175343352013
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8000166218625165
- Mean Citation Score: 244.70156000000003
- Max Citation Score: 303.37497
- Similarity Product: 237.12359017719987

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