PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15958525
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-04
Publication Date: 2018-08
Patent Classification: ["205", "118000"]

Abstract:
An apparatus for continuous simultaneous electroplating of two metals having substantially different standard electrodeposition potentials (e.g., for deposition of Sn—Ag alloys) comprises an anode chamber for containing an anolyte comprising ions of a first, less noble metal, (e.g., tin), but not of a second, more noble, metal (e.g., silver) and an active anode; a cathode chamber for containing catholyte including ions of a first metal (e.g., tin), ions of a second, more noble, metal (e.g., silver), and the substrate; a separation structure positioned between the anode chamber and the cathode chamber, where the separation structure substantially prevents transfer of more noble metal from catholyte to the anolyte; and fluidic features and an associated controller coupled to the apparatus and configured to perform continuous electroplating, while maintaining substantially constant concentrations of plating bath components for extended periods of use.

Claim (Index 17):
An apparatus for simultaneous electroplating of a first metal and of a second, more noble metal on a cathodic substrate, comprising:\n (a) a cathode and anode chambers having a separation structure therebetween; and (b) a controller comprising program instructions for conducting a process comprising the steps of:\n (i) providing an anolyte containing ions of the first metal but not the second metal in the anode chamber comprising an active anode comprising the first metal; \n (ii) providing a catholyte containing ions of both the first metal and the second metal in the cathode chamber; and \n (iii) simultaneously plating the first and the second metal onto the substrate, \n while substantially preventing ions of the second metal from entering the anode chamber, while delivering an acid solution to the anode chamber from a source outside the anode chamber, while delivering a solution comprising ions of the first metal to the anode chamber from a source outside the anode chamber, while removing a portion of the catholyte, while delivering ions of the second metal to the cathode chamber, while delivering anolyte from the anode chamber to the cathode chamber via a conduit other than the separation structure, wherein the apparatus is configured to maintain the concentration of protons in the catholyte such that it does not fluctuate by more than about 10% over the period of at least about 0.2 plating bath turnovers.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 41.0
- Percentile: 91.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.21053
- Patent Class: 205.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['13305384', '15198787', '15360757', '13902517', '14921602']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8371769038460273
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.6224539687353692
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8157046103349614
- Mean Citation Score: 462.15694
- Max Citation Score: 571.0694
- Similarity Product: 500.1942585276128

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

Dataset: test