PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15959135
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-04
Publication Date: 2018-08
Patent Classification: ["438", "714000"]

Abstract:
Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for controlling gas flow in a semiconductor manufacturing chamber. The method includes flowing a reactant gas thorough an inner feed and a tuning gas through an outer feed surrounding the inner feed, such that the gases do not mix until both are introduced in the chamber. Further, the flow of the reactant gas is convective, and the flow of the tuning gas is directed at an angle from the direction of the reactant gas, providing a delivery of the tuning gas in closer proximity to the RF power before further mixing with the reactant gas. Radio frequency power is provided to the electrode to ignite a plasma using the reactant and tuning gases. The diffusive flow of the tuning gas enables the tuning gas to be dissociated by the RF power allowing for control of the local residence time variation and preferential spatial dissociation patterns with respect to the local residence time of the reactant gas. The introduction of the gases into the chamber without pre-mixing imparts control of etch uniformity across the surface of the substrate during etching.

Claim (Index 11):
A method for processing a substrate in a chamber, the method comprising:\n flowing separately a reactant gas through an inner feed of a gas feed injector into the chamber, the inner feed being defined at a center of a dielectric window of the chamber; flowing separately a tuning gas through an outer feed of the gas feed injector into the chamber, the outer feed surrounding the inner feed at the center of the dielectric window; providing radio frequency (RF) power to an electrode disposed over the dielectric window to ignite a plasma over the substrate; wherein the tuning gas is introduced at an angle that is away from the reactant gas, the reactant gas having a first flow rate that is higher than a second flow rate of the tuning gas, such that a fraction of the tuning gas is configured to dissociate by the RF power before being mixed with the reactant gas, such that a mixture of the reactant gas, the dissociated fraction of the tuning gas and the reactant gas produces a plasma over the substrate; and adjusting a rate of flowing of the reactant gas and tuning gas into the chamber to control a spatial plasma dissociation profile of the plasma for controlling etch uniformity over a surface of the substrate.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 50.0
- Percentile: 91.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.0625
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14675659', '13300483', '12805865', '09788365', '12021177']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8595769502090421
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5531504258750534
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8289342977756432
- Mean Citation Score: 258.613262
- Max Citation Score: 419.50668
- Similarity Product: 368.1975003172732

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