US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on April 14 for "Cleaning method and plasma processing apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,603,262, issued on April 14, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Cleaning method and plasma processing apparatus" was invented by Yoshiki Nakano (Nirasaki, Japan), Takafumi Nogami (Nirasaki, Japan) and Kenichi Kote (Nirasaki, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a specification step, the pressure within a processing container at the time of plasma cleaning is specified from the amount of damage to a protective film that is provided on an inner surface of the processing container and the cleaning rate at which accumulated matter that accumulates in the processing container is removed, said amount of damage and said cleaning ...