ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,320,012, issued on June 3, was assigned to ASM IP Holding B.V. (Almere, Netherlands).
"Thermal atomic layer etching processes" was invented by Tom E. Blomberg (Vantaa, Finland), Varun Sharma (Helsinki), Suvi Haukka (Helsinki), Marko Tuominen (Espoo, Finland) and Chiyu Zhu (Helsinki).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Thermal atomic layer etching processes are disclosed. In some embodiments, the methods comprise at least one etch cycle in which the substrate is alternately and sequentially exposed to a first vapor phase halide reactant and a second vapor halide reactant. In some embodiments, the first reactant may comprise an organic halide com...