PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16015096
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-06
Publication Date: 2019-12
Patent Classification: ["438", "014000"]

Abstract:
Photoresist features can be characterized by electron microscopy-based metrology. A protective coating may be deposited on the photoresist with no change or minimal change to the dimensions of the underlying photoresist features, where the protective coating may be conformal and formed in a reactor operated under low temperature and low plasma conditions. In some implementations, the protective coating is formed by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition. Reliable and accurate profile information of photoresist features can be captured by metrology using the protective coating.

Claim (Index 1):
A method of characterizing a photoresist, the method comprising:\n receiving a wafer having a photoresist; conformally depositing a protective coating on the photoresist, wherein the protective coating is conformally deposited in a reactor operated under conditions with a wafer temperature being less than about 70\u00b0 C. and a plasma power being less than about 500 W, wherein depositing the protective coating reduces a feature height of the photoresist by less than about 15%, changes a feature volume of the photoresist by less than about 15%, and/or changes a critical dimension of the photoresist by less than about 15%; and performing metrology on the photoresist with the protective coating using a metrology tool, wherein performing metrology on the photoresist includes exposing the wafer to an ion-beam or electron-beam irradiation.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 56.0
- Percentile: 94.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.6
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15902036', '15947402', '15849253', '10202956', '15411892']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8656775031172804
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.505871376865984
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8296968904921508
- Mean Citation Score: 199.51396
- Max Citation Score: 207.69981
- Similarity Product: 119.42601410807848

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