PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16006402
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-06
Publication Date: 2018-12
Patent Classification: ["438", "658000"]

Abstract:
Methods for filling a substrate feature with a seamless tungsten fill are described. The methods include depositing a tungsten film, oxidizing the tungsten film to a tungsten oxide pillar, reducing the tungsten oxide film to a seamless tungsten gapfill and optionally depositing additional tungsten on the tungsten gapfill.

Claim (Index 20):
A method of substrate processing comprising:\n providing a substrate with a first substrate surface of a first material and a second substrate surface of a second material, the first material comprising a dielectric material and the second material comprising a conductive material, the substrate having at least one feature with a sidewall and a bottom, the sidewall formed by the first substrate surface and the bottom formed by the second substrate surface; forming a tungsten film on the substrate by atomic layer deposition, the tungsten film having a closed seam formed within the feature and an overburden formed on the first substrate surface outside the feature, a top of the seam being above the sidewall; planarizing the substrate to remove the overburden from the first substrate surface so that a top of the tungsten film is about coplanar with the first substrate surface outside the feature and the top of the seam is removed; oxidizing the tungsten film by a thermal oxidation process or a plasma oxidation process to form a tungsten oxide pillar which extends from the feature without a seam; reducing the tungsten oxide pillar to tungsten by a thermal reduction process or a plasma reduction process, the tungsten forming a substantially seamless tungsten gapfill within the feature, and a top of the tungsten gapfill being less than or equal to about 10 \u212b below the first substrate surface outside of the feature; and depositing additional tungsten on the tungsten gapfill to raise the top of the tungsten gapfill to be substantially coplanar with the first substrate surface outside of the feature by depositing a silicon film on the tungsten gapfill and exposing the silicon film to a tungsten halide to convert the silicon film to tungsten.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 17.0
- Percentile: 94.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.73333
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15658846', '15945117', '15805753', '15461847', '15621120']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8645188502514637
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4936455033364753
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8274315155599649
- Mean Citation Score: 209.990888
- Max Citation Score: 231.66866
- Similarity Product: 171.9997451144648

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