US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on May 20 for "Plasma processing method and plasma processing apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,308,241, issued on May 20, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Plasma processing method and plasma processing apparatus" was invented by Masahiro Tabata (Miyagi, Japan) and Sho Kumakura (Miyagi, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A substrate processing apparatus includes: a chamber having at least one gas inlet and at least one gas outlet; a substrate support disposed in the chamber; and a controller. The controller causes (a) placing a substrate on the substrate support, the substrate including a base layer and a first layer formed on the base layer; (b) etching the first layer to form a recess in the first layer; (c) when d...