US Patent Issued to Lam Research on March 18 for "Non-elastomeric, non-polymeric, non-metallic membrane valves for semiconductor processing equipment" (California, Hawaii Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,253,190, issued on March 18, was assigned to Lam Research Corp. (Fremont, Calif.).

"Non-elastomeric, non-polymeric, non-metallic membrane valves for semiconductor processing equipment" was invented by Mariusch Gregor (Gilroy, Calif.), Theodoros Panagopoulos (Los Gatos, Calif.) and Thorsten Bernd Lill (Kalaheo, Hawaii).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Non-elastomeric, non-polymeric, non-metallic membrane valves for use in high-vacuum applications are disclosed. Such valves are functional even when the fluid-control side of the valve is exposed to a sub-atmospheric pressure field which may generally act to collapse/seal traditional elastomer...