US Patent Issued to Applied Materials on Nov. 3 for "Methods of forming silicon nitride films" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,787,669, issued on Nov. 3, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Methods of forming silicon nitride films" was invented by Joseph AuBuchon (San Jose, Calif.), Kenneth S. Collins (San Jose, Calif.), Hanhong Chen (Milpitas, Calif.), Philip A. Kraus (San Jose, Calif.) and Michael Rice (Pleasanton, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods of depositing improved quality silicon nitride (SixNy) films are disclosed. Exemplary methods include exposing a semiconductor substrate in a semiconductor processing chamber to a silicon-containing precursor, to a first plasma produced from a first gas mixture comprising helium...