PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15902544
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-02
Publication Date: 2019-08
Patent Classification: ["430", "005000"]

Abstract:
Disclosed is a photolithography (e.g., extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photolithography) system that incorporates a photomask-pellicle apparatus with an angled pellicle. The apparatus includes a photomask structure and a pellicle structure that is mounted on the photomask structure. The pellicle is essentially transparent to a given-type radiation (e.g., EUV radiation), is essentially reflective to out-of-band (OOB) radiation, and is positioned at an angle relative to the photomask. When radiation is directed toward the photomask-pellicle apparatus during a photolithographic exposure process, beams that are reflected and diffracted off of the patterned surface of the photomask structure are directed toward a target semiconductor wafer and beams that are reflected and diffracted off of the pellicle are directed away from the target semiconductor wafer. Aiming the OOB radiation away from the target semiconductor wafer improves imaging quality by minimizing the negative impact of OOB radiation. Also disclosed is an associated photolithography method.

Claim (Index 9):
A system comprising:\n a light source that generates beams of radiation including first beams of a first-type radiation and second beams of a second-type radiation that is different from the first-type radiation; and a photomask-pellicle apparatus comprising:\n a photomask structure comprising: a planar substrate; and a patterned layer on the planar substrate, wherein a center portion of the photomask structure has a patterned surface and an edge portion adjacent to a periphery of the center portion has a planar surface that parallel to the planar substrate; and, \n a pellicle structure comprising:\n a pellicle frame; and \n a pellicle attached to the pellicle frame, \n \n wherein the pellicle is essentially transparent to the first-type radiation and is essentially reflective to the second-type radiation, wherein the pellicle frame is mounted on the photomask structure with the pellicle covering the patterned surface and being angled relative to the planar surface, and wherein a predetermined tilt angle of the pellicle relative to the planar surface is such that, during a photolithographic exposure process when the light source aims the beams of radiation at the photomask-pellicle apparatus, most of the first beams pass through the pellicle, head toward the patterned surface at a range of first angles of incidence, are reflected off of the patterned surface at a range of first angles of reflection, pass back through the pellicle and head in a range of first directions, and most of the second beams head toward the pellicle at a range of second angles of incidence, are reflected off of the pellicle at a range of second angles of reflection and head in a range of second directions that is different from the range of first directions.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 50.0
- Percentile: 88.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.27397
- Patent Class: 430.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['09784800', '11753496', '15155444', '11754225', '13916946']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7679167363417141
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4902062149359788
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7401456842011406
- Mean Citation Score: 238.06053000000003
- Max Citation Score: 257.87595
- Similarity Product: 202.31290587542648

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

Dataset: test