PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16110330
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-08
Publication Date: 2019-03
Patent Classification: ["257", "316000"]

Abstract:
A method of forming a memory cell, e.g., flash memory cell, may include (a) depositing polysilicon over a substrate, (b) depositing a mask over the polysilicon, (c) etching an opening in the mask to expose a surface of the polysilicon, (d) growing a floating gate oxide at the exposed polysilicon surface, (e) depositing additional oxide above the floating gate oxide, such that the floating gate oxide and additional oxide collectively define an oxide cap, (f) removing mask material adjacent the oxide cap, (g) etching away portions of the polysilicon uncovered by the oxide cap, wherein a remaining portion of the polysilicon defines a floating gate, and (h) depositing a spacer layer over the oxide cap and floating gate. The spacer layer may includes a shielding region aligned over at least one upwardly-pointing tip region of the floating gate, which helps protect such tip region(s) from a subsequent source implant process.

Claim (Index 12):
A method of forming a memory cell structure, the method comprising:\n forming a polysilicon layer over a substrate; depositing mask material over the polysilicon layer; etching a pair of openings in the mask material to expose a pair of top surface regions of the polysilicon layer; growing a floating gate oxide at each exposed top surface region of the polysilicon layer; depositing additional oxide in each of the pair of openings in the mask material and above each respective floating gate oxide, wherein each floating gate oxide and the additional oxide deposited over that floating gate oxide collectively defines an oxide cap; removing mask material adjacent lateral sides of each oxide cap; and performing a floating gate etch to remove portions of the polysilicon layer uncovered by each oxide cap, wherein remaining portions of the polysilicon layer define a pair of spaced apart floating gate structures.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 29.0
- Percentile: 96.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.3
- Patent Class: 257.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15921858', '15983461', '15922571', '15290960', '12242857']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.9316441781680213
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5484394898382128
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8933237093350404
- Mean Citation Score: 315.847512
- Max Citation Score: 424.61932
- Similarity Product: 312.2666007436705

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