PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15992598
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-05
Publication Date: 2019-12
Patent Classification: ["257", "384000"]

Abstract:
Embodiments disclosed herein relate generally to methods for forming recesses in epitaxial source/drain regions for forming conductive features. In some embodiments, the recesses are formed in a two-step etching process including an anisotropic etch to form a vertical opening and an isotropic etch to expand an end portion of the vertical opening laterally and vertically. The recesses can have increased contact area between the source/drain region and the conductive feature, and can enable reduced resistance therebetween.

Claim (Index 12):
The method of  claim 11 , wherein isotropically etching the source/drain region comprises performing a dry etch process, wherein the dry etch process is performed using an etch chemistry including a fluorine based gas, chlorine gas, hydrogen bromide, or a combination thereof.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 2.0
- Percentile: 93.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.44643
- Patent Class: 257.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: none
- Component Type: 0
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15909838', '15825533', '15966858', '15598717', '15684088']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.9017959663280174
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4905207952706671
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8606684492222824
- Mean Citation Score: 162.06662
- Max Citation Score: 180.37837
- Similarity Product: 128.09664619698285

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

Dataset: test