ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,378,689, issued on Aug. 5, was assigned to EBARA Corp. (Tokyo).
"Plating apparatus and contact cleaning method" was invented by Kentaro Yamamoto (Tokyo), Masaki Tomita (Tokyo) and Kazuhito Tsuji (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A plating module includes: a plating tank configured to accommodate a plating solution; a substrate holder configured to hold a substrate with a surface to be plated facing downward; a rotation mechanism configured to rotate the substrate holder; a contact member 494-4 having a substrate contact point 494-4a for contacting an outer peripheral portion of the surface to be plated of the substrate held by the sub...