PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16034022
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-07
Publication Date: 2018-11
Patent Classification: ["438", "788000"]

Abstract:
Methods and apparatuses for depositing films in high aspect ratio features and trenches using a post-dose treatment operation during atomic layer deposition are provided. Post-dose treatment operations are performed after adsorbing precursors onto the substrate to remove adsorbed precursors at the tops of features prior to converting the adsorbed precursors to a silicon-containing film. Post-dose treatments include exposure to non-oxidizing gas, exposure to non-oxidizing plasma, and exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

Claim (Index 1):
An apparatus for processing substrates, the apparatus comprising:\n (a) at least one process chamber including a pedestal for holding a substrate having one or more features; (b) at least one outlet for coupling the at least one process chamber to a vacuum; (c) one or more process gas inlets coupled to one or more silicon-containing precursor sources, one or more post-dose treatment gas sources, and one or more reactant gas sources; (d) a radio-frequency (RF) generator; and (e) a controller for controlling operations in the apparatus, including machine-readable instructions for:\n (i) introducing a silicon-containing precursor from at least one of the one or more silicon-containing precursor sources to the at least one process chamber under conditions allowing the silicon-containing precursor to adsorb onto the surface of the substrate, thereby forming an adsorbed layer of the silicon-containing precursor over the substrate; \n (ii) prior to introducing a reactant from at least one of the one or more reactant gas sources to the at least one process chamber and after introducing the silicon-containing precursor, exposing the substrate during a post-dose treatment operation to a gas selected from the group consisting of: nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, ammonia, helium, and C x H y , wherein x is an integer between and including 1-5 and y is an integer between and including 4-16, and \n (iii) introducing the reactant and igniting a plasma to form a silicon-containing film over the substrate.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 18.0
- Percentile: 95.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.44231
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15201221', '15829702', '15279310', '15349753', '15253301']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8543081430336402
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5036834479533068
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.819245673525607
- Mean Citation Score: 239.37237600000003
- Max Citation Score: 294.10806
- Similarity Product: 248.391507935797

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