US Patent Issued to APPLIED MATERIALS on June 16 for "Apparatus for removing etch stop layers" (California, Oregon Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,660,539, issued on June 16, was assigned to APPLIED MATERIALS Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Apparatus for removing etch stop layers" was invented by Suketu Parikh (San Jose, Calif.), Andrew Yeoh (Portland, Ore.), Tom S. Choi (Santa Clara, Calif.), Joung Joo Lee (San Jose, Calif.) and Nitin K. Ingle (Santa Clara, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In some embodiments, an integrated tool for opening an etch stop layer and performing metallization comprises a first chamber with a remote plasma source, a direct plasma source, and a thermal source configured to open the etch stop layer on a substrate, a second chamber of the integrated tool...