US Patent Issued to Lam Research on March 11 for "Lipseal edge exclusion engineering to maintain material integrity at wafer edge" (Oregon, California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,247,310, issued on March 11, was assigned to Lam Research Corp. (Fremont, Calif.).

"Lipseal edge exclusion engineering to maintain material integrity at wafer edge" was invented by Justin Oberst (Beaverton, Ore.), Bryan L. Buckalew (Tualatin, Ore.) and Kari Thorkelsson (Santa Clara, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Sequential electrodeposition of metals into through-mask features on a semiconductor substrate is conducted such as to reduce the deleterious consequences of lipseal's pressure onto the mask material. In a first electroplating step, a first metal (e.g., nickel) is electrodeposited using a lipseal that has an innermost po...