ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,261,025, issued on March 25, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Plasma processing apparatus" was invented by Taro Ikeda (Nirasaki, Japan) and Satoru Kawakami (Nirasaki, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A plasma processing apparatus includes: a shower head provided above a substrate supporter; a gas supply pipe extending vertically above a chamber to be connected to an upper center of the shower head; an introducer through which the gas supply pipe passes and into which an electromagnetic wave of a VHF or higher is introduced to activate a gas; and an electromagnetic-wave supply path connected to the gas supply pipe. The i...