PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16364797
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-03
Publication Date: 2019-07
Patent Classification: ["438", "712000"]

Abstract:
Provided are methods and apparatuses for removing a polysilicon layer on a wafer, where the wafer can include a nitride layer, a low-k dielectric layer, an oxide layer, and other films. A plasma of a hydrogen-based species and a fluorine-based species is generated in a remote plasma source, and the wafer is exposed to the plasma at a relatively low temperature to limit the formation of solid byproduct. In some implementations, the wafer is maintained at a temperature below about 60° C. The polysilicon layer is removed at a very high etch rate, and the selectivity of polysilicon over the nitride layer and the oxide layer is very high. In some implementations, the wafer is supported on a wafer support having a plurality of thermal zones configured to define a plurality of different temperatures across the wafer.

Claim (Index 16):
The method of  claim 1 , wherein the wafer is supported on an electrostatic chuck and further comprises a native oxide layer on the polysilicon layer, the method further comprising:\n applying a bias to the electrostatic chuck to generate a capacitively-coupled plasma of at least a fluorine-based etchant between the remote plasma source and the electrostatic chuck; and exposing the wafer to the capacitively-coupled plasma to remove the native oxide layer, wherein removal of the native oxide layer is performed in situ with removal of the polysilicon layer.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 44.0
- Percentile: 99.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.0411
- Patent Class: 438.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14938635', '13916497', '13916387', '14577977', '15390955']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.9153401206346042
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5813212902513996
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8819382375962838
- Mean Citation Score: 334.965102
- Max Citation Score: 445.25433
- Similarity Product: 421.29758284621965

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