US Patent Issued to APPLIED MATERIALS on July 29 for "Methods for etching structures with oxygen pulsing" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,374,557, issued on July 29, was assigned to APPLIED MATERIALS Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Methods for etching structures with oxygen pulsing" was invented by Nancy Fung (Livermore, Calif.) and Gabriela Alva (Santa Clara, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system and method for patterning a material layer on a substrate includes forming a hard mask layer on a material layer disposed on a substrate, and etching the material layer through the hard mask layer by simultaneously supplying an etching gas mixture and an oxygen containing gas. The etching gas mixture is supplied continuously and the oxygen containing gas is pulsed."

The pa...