ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,387,941, issued on Aug. 12, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Etching method and plasma processing apparatus" was invented by Takahiro Yokoyama (Miyagi, Japan), Maju Tomura (Miyagi, Japan), Yoshihide Kihara (Miyagi, Japan) and Satoshi Ohuchida (Miyagi, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A technique protects a mask in plasma etching of a silicon-containing film. An etching method includes providing a substrate in a chamber included in a plasma processing apparatus. The substrate includes a silicon-containing film and a mask. The mask contains carbon. The etching method further includes etching the silicon-containing film wit...