US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on July 14 for "Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,685,048, issued on July 14, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus" was invented by Masami Oikawa (Iwate, Japan) and Yuya Takamura (Iwate, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A substrate processing method includes: preparing a substrate having a target film on a surface; forming a barrier film that covers the target film; supplying a deuterium gas and an oxygen gas to the target film covered with the barrier film, thereby implanting deuterium into the target film; and removing the barrier film after the deuterium is implanted into the target film."

The patent was fil...