PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16018921
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-06
Publication Date: 2019-04
Patent Classification: ["438", "197000"]

Abstract:
Methods are provided for fabricating semiconductor fins having uniform profiles. For example, a method includes forming semiconductor fins on a substrate, including a first semiconductor fin disposed in a first device region, and a second semiconductor fin disposed in a second device region. The first and second semiconductor fins are formed of different types of semiconductor material, and are initially formed to have different widths and heights. A semiconductor fin trimming process is performed, which is selective to the semiconductor material of the second semiconductor fin, so that the fin trimming process results in the formation of semiconductor fins having substantially equal heights and equal widths across the device regions as a result of the fin trimming process. The semiconductor fins in different device regions are initially formed with non-uniform profiles (e.g., differential heights and widths) to compensate for micro-loading and etch rate variations during the fin trimming process.

Claim (Index 18):
A method of for fabricating a semiconductor device, comprising:\n forming a plurality of semiconductor fins on a substrate, wherein the plurality of semiconductor fins comprises a first semiconductor fin disposed in a first device region, and a second semiconductor fin disposed in a second device region, wherein the first and second semiconductor fins are formed of different types of semiconductor material, wherein the different types of semiconductor material comprise a first epitaxial semiconductor material and a second epitaxial semiconductor material and further wherein the first semiconductor fin and the second semiconductor fin are formed to have different widths and heights; performing a semiconductor fin trimming, process, which is selective to the semiconductor material of the second semiconductor fin, to trim the first and second semiconductor fins to have substantially a same width and substantially a same height; and patterning a layer of the first epitaxial semiconductor material, which is disposed on a semiconductor substrate, to form a trench opening in the layer of the first epitaxial semiconductor material down to the semiconductor substrate, wherein the trench opening is formed in a first device region: wherein patterning the layer of first epitaxial semiconductor material to form the trench opening comprises: forming a semiconductor fin pattern image over the layer of first epitaxial semiconductor material, wherein the semiconductor fin pattern image comprises a first feature disposed in the first device region, and a second feature disposed in the second device region, wherein the first feature comprises a width that defines the width W 1  of the first semiconductor fin, and wherein the second feature comprises a width that defines the width W 2  of the second semiconductor fin; filling spaces surrounding the first and second features of the semiconductor fin pattern image with insulating fill material that has etch selectivity with regard to the first and second features of the semiconductor fin pattern image; etching away the first feature of the semiconductor fin pattern image selective to the insulating fill material to form an opening that exposes a portion of the layer of first epitaxial semiconductor material; and etching the exposed portion of the layer of first epitaxial semiconductor material to form the trench opening in which the first semiconductor fin is formed.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 36.0
- Percentile: 94.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.32857
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15786744', '15807751', '15282272', '15789217', '15430766']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8535874859583558
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5974227564459171
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8279710130071118
- Mean Citation Score: 353.76072200000016
- Max Citation Score: 495.95676
- Similarity Product: 477.2073112970352

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