US Patent Issued to Applied Materials on March 17 for "Methods for oxidizing a silicon hardmask using ion implant" (Massachusetts Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,581,884, issued on March 17, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Methods for oxidizing a silicon hardmask using ion implant" was invented by Sungho Jo (Brookline, Mass.), Rajesh Prasad (Lexington, Mass.) and Kyuha Shim (Andover, Mass.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods of forming a silicon hardmask are disclosed. In one example, a method may include forming a silicon mask over a device layer, forming a carbon mask over the silicon mask, and forming an opening through the carbon mask. The method may further include forming an oxide layer within the opening by performing an ion implantation process to an upp...