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 17):
The substrate processing method of  claim 16 , wherein, during the isotropic etching on at least a part of the second sacrificial layer, an exposed part of the first sacrificial layer on the upper surface and the lower surface is etched to a predetermined thickness or less.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 5.0
- Percentile: 95.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.3913
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: none
- Component Type: 0
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15640239', '15951644', '14156781', '13238084', '14790724']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8477832919421727
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5159516854240485
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8146001312903604
- Mean Citation Score: 244.70156000000003
- Max Citation Score: 303.37497
- Similarity Product: 243.17775694603623

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