PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15915272
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-03
Publication Date: 2018-07
Patent Classification: ["438", "696000"]

Abstract:
Disclosed is a method of forming a semiconductor device. The method includes providing a precursor having a substrate and gate stacks over the substrate, wherein each of the gate stacks includes an electrode layer, a first hard mask (HM) layer over the electrode layer, and a second HM layer over the first HM layer. The method further includes depositing a dielectric layer over the substrate and the gate stacks and filling spaces between the gate stacks; and performing a first chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process to partially remove the dielectric layer. The method further includes performing an etching process to remove the second HM layer and to partially remove the dielectric layer, thereby exposing the first HM layer. The method further includes performing a second CMP process to at least partially remove the first HM layer.

Claim (Index 16):
A method of forming a semiconductor device, comprising:\n providing a precursor having a substrate and gate stacks disposed over the substrate, wherein each of the gate stacks includes a first layer, a first hard mask disposed on the first layer, and a second hard mask disposed on the first hard mask; forming an etch stop layer (ESL) on top and side surfaces of the gate stacks; depositing an inter-layer dielectric (ILD) layer on the ESL and the gate stacks and between the gate stacks; performing a first chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process to expose the ESL; performing a first etching process to etch the ESL, the ILD layer, and the second hard mask; performing a second etching process to etch the ILD layer and the second hard mask to expose the first hard mask; and performing a second CMP process to selectively remove the first hard mask.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 17.0
- Percentile: 90.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.77778
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15236210', '13873298', '15434840', '14880379', '12428011']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.858577608016206
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.508503045268254
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8235701517414108
- Mean Citation Score: 232.734922
- Max Citation Score: 306.81155
- Similarity Product: 263.7899448601246

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