ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,467,132, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).
"Methods for depositing film layers" was invented by Yaoying Zhong (Singapore), Siew Kit Hoi (Singapore), Haomin Xu (Singapore), Li Ying Choo (Singapore), Xiao Tan (Singapore) and Jay Min Soh (Singapore).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for depositing a film layer on a substrate incorporates ion flux control to alter sputtering atom trajectories. A method may include flowing argon gas around a periphery of the substrate with a surface of the substrate having a plurality of structures with sidewalls and an edge region containing edge structures...