US Patent Issued to Applied Materials on July 21 for "Spacer patterning process with flat top profile" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,690,406, issued on July 21, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Spacer patterning process with flat top profile" was invented by Chao Li (Santa Clara, Calif.) and Gene Lee (San Jose, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for spacer patterning includes performing a deposition process, the deposition process comprising conformally depositing an over layer over a spacer layer as deposited on top surfaces of a patterned mandrel layer and on sidewalls of the patterned mandrel layer, and performing an etch process using a fluorine containing etching gas. The etch process includes a post-deposition breakthrou...