US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on April 21 for "Method for determining amount of wear of edge ring, plasma processing apparatus, and substrate processing system" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,609,277, issued on April 21, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Method for determining amount of wear of edge ring, plasma processing apparatus, and substrate processing system" was invented by Ikko Tanaka (Kurokawa-gun, Japan) and Atsushi Terasawa (Kurokawa-gun, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method includes (a) generating plasma in a chamber in a plasma processing apparatus. The plasma processing apparatus includes a substrate support in the chamber. The substrate support includes a first portion to support a substrate and a second portion to support an edge ring. The first portion includes a first electrode, and th...