US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on June 23 for "Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,666,894, issued on June 23, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Substrate processing method and substrate processing apparatus" was invented by Shinya Ishikawa (Miyagi, Japan), Kenta Ono (Miyagi, Japan) and Masanobu Honda (Miyagi, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A substrate processing method according to the present disclosure includes: preparing a substrate having (a) an etching film, (b) a mask film formed on the etching film and having a sidewall that defines an opening on the etching film, and (c) a protective film formed to surround the opening on the sidewall of the mask film and containing an element selected from t...