US Patent Issued to Lam Research on March 3 for "Selective silicon trim by thermal etching" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,568,781, issued on March 3, was assigned to Lam Research Corp. (Fremont, Calif.).

"Selective silicon trim by thermal etching" was invented by Nathan Musselwhite (San Jose, Calif.), Ji Zhu (Castro Valley, Calif.), Gerome Michel Dominique Melaet (San Leandro, Calif.) and Mark Naoshi Kawaguchi (San Carlos, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods and apparatuses for precise trimming of silicon-containing materials are provided. Methods involve oxidizing silicon-containing materials and thermally removing the oxidized silicon-containing materials at particular temperatures for a self-limiting etch process. Methods also involve a surface...