US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on July 21 for "Etching method and plasma processing apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,689,006, issued on July 21, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Etching method and plasma processing apparatus" was invented by Takashi Kako (Kurokawa-gun, Japan), Ryu Nagai (Kurokawa-gun, Japan) and Koki Tanaka (Kurokawa-gun, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A disclosed etching method includes (a) forming a protective film containing carbon on a surface in a chamber of a plasma processing apparatus. The etching method further includes (b) etching an etch film of a substrate with plasma generated from an etching gas that includes a hydrogen fluoride gas and a hydrofluorocarbon gas within the chamber. The substrate includes ...