US Patent Issued to Applied Materials on June 10 for "EM source for enhanced plasma control" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,325,909, issued on June 10, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"EM source for enhanced plasma control" was invented by Alexander Jansen (San Jose, Calif.), Keith A. Miller (Mountain View, Calif.), Prashanth Kothnur (San Jose, Calif.), Martin Riker (Milpitas, Calif.), David Gunther (Santa Clara, Calif.) and Emily Schooley (Mountain View, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Apparatus and methods for controlling plasma profiles during PVD deposition processes are disclosed. Some embodiments utilize EM coils placed above the target to control the plasma profile during deposition."

The patent was filed on July 11...