ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,315,704, issued on May 27, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Plasma processing apparatus, and method and program for controlling elevation of focus ring" was invented by Yusuke Saitoh (Miyagi, Japan) and Tokuhisa Oiwa (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A plasma processing apparatus includes a mounting table, an acquisition unit, a calculation unit, and an elevation control unit. The mounting table mounts thereon a target object as a plasma processing target. The elevation mechanism vertically moves a focus ring surrounding the target object. The acquisition unit acquires state information indicating a measured state of the...