ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,562,358, issued on Feb. 24, was assigned to HORIBA STEC Co. LTD. (Japan).
"System and method for detecting endpoint in plasma processing" was invented by Terry R. Turner (Austin, Texas) and Jerome R. Cannon (Austin, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A plasma processing control method for detecting an endpoint and controlling plasma processing is disclosed. The plasma processing control method includes tracking one or more harmonics that are produced due to nonlinearity of an impedance of a plasma environment. The one or more harmonics are associated with voltage, current, or a combination thereof. The plasma processing control method ...