ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,557,581, issued on Feb. 17, was assigned to SCREEN Holdings Co. Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan).
"Etching method and etching apparatus" was invented by Kazuki Nishihara (Kyoto, Japan), Yuya Akanishi (Kyoto, Japan) and Masaki Inaba (Kyoto, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An etching method according to the present invention includes after a step of creating a reduced pressure state, a step of supplying an etching gas containing hydrogen fluoride into a processing chamber and etching a coating film formed on a substrate, after the step of etching the coating film, a step of cleaning the substrate by supplying vapor into the processing chamber, and...