US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on May 19 for "High aspect ratio carbon layer etch with improved throughput and process window" (American, Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,635,431, issued on May 19, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"High aspect ratio carbon layer etch with improved throughput and process window" was invented by Du Zhang (Albany, N.Y.), Shihsheng Chang (Albany, N.Y.), Toru Hisamatsu (Albany, N.Y.) and Koki Mukaiyama (Miyagi, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Various embodiments of improved process flows and methods are provided herein for etching high aspect ratio (HAR) features in carbon-containing hard mask layers. In the disclosed embodiments, the improved process flows and methods combine sidewall passivation and mask de-clogging steps in a single plasma process step to im...