US Patent Issued to Applied Materials on July 28 for "Bow mitigation in high aspect ratio oxide and nitride etches" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,696,703, issued on July 28, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Bow mitigation in high aspect ratio oxide and nitride etches" was invented by Mir Abdulla Al Galib (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Sonam Dorje Sherpa (San Ramon, Calif.), Kenji Takeshita (Sunnyvale, Calif.) and Alok Ranjan (San Ramon, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods of semiconductor processing may include forming plasma effluents. The plasma effluents may then contact a carbon-containing hardmask and an oxide cap. The plasma effluents can etch one or more features in the oxide cap through one or more apertures of the carbon-containing hardmask. ...