US Patent Issued to Hitachi High-Tech on July 14 for "Plasma processing method" (American, Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,685,053, issued on July 14, was assigned to Hitachi High-Tech Corp. (Tokyo).

"Plasma processing method" was invented by Yohei Ishii (Hillsboro, Ore.), Kathryn Maier (Hillsboro, Ore.), Lucas Kovatch (Hillsboro, Ore.) and Makoto Miura (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A plasma processing method of etching a ruthenium-containing film using a first etching process (S01) and a subsequent second etching process (S02). S02 comprises a first step (S11) where a modified layer is formed on the surface of the ruthenium-containing film using a halogen element-containing plasma, and a following second step (S12) to desorb the modified layer using...