US Patent Issued to Lam Research on Jan. 20 for "Edge exclusion control" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 20 -- United States Patent no. 12,531,210, issued on Jan. 20, was assigned to Lam Research Corp. (Fremont, Calif.).

"Edge exclusion control" was invented by Anand Chandrashekar (Fremont, Calif.), Eric H. Lenz (Livermore, Calif.), Leonard Wai Fung Kho (San Francisco), Jeffrey Charles Clevenger (Fremont, Calif.) and In Su Ha (Fremont, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided herein are methods and apparatuses for controlling uniformity of processing at an edge region of a semiconductor wafer. In some embodiments, the methods include exposing an edge region to treatment gases such as etch gases and/or inhibition gases. Also provided herein are exclusion ring assemblie...