PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16009519
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-06
Publication Date: 2019-12
Patent Classification: ["257", "288000"]

Abstract:
In one exemplary aspect, a method for semiconductor manufacturing comprises forming first and second silicon nitride features on sidewall surfaces of a contact hole, where the contact hole is disposed in a dielectric layer and above a source/drain (S/D) feature. The method further comprises forming a contact plug in the contact hole, the contact plug being electrically coupled to the S/D feature, removing a top portion of the contact plug to create a recess in the contact hole, forming a hard mask layer in the recess, and removing the first and second silicon nitride features via selective etching to form first and second air gaps, respectively.

Claim (Index 11):
A method, comprising:\n providing a semiconductor device structure including:\n a substrate; \n first and second gate stacks on the substrate; \n first and second silicon nitride features disposed on sidewall surfaces of a contact hole defined in and surrounded by a dielectric layer between the first and second gate stacks; and \n a contact plug between, and in direct contact with, the first and second silicon nitride features; \n etching the first and second silicon nitride features to form first and second air gaps, respectively, wherein the first and second air gaps expose sidewalls of the contact plug to air within the first and second air gaps; and forming a seal layer over the contact plug to cover the first and second air gaps.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 5.0
- Percentile: 94.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.98305
- Patent Class: 257.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15898706', '15993970', '15882905', '12839994', '15886812']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.90945851910533
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4691231061506526
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8654249778098624
- Mean Citation Score: 166.13852000000003
- Max Citation Score: 175.30925
- Similarity Product: 136.65619492238758

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

Dataset: test