US Patent Issued to Tokyo Electron on Nov. 25 for "Cleaning method, substrate processing method and plasma processing apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,482,640, issued on Nov. 25, was assigned to Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Cleaning method, substrate processing method and plasma processing apparatus" was invented by Yusuke Aoki (Miyagi, Japan), Shun Itoh (Miyagi, Japan) and Yoshiki Fuse (Miyagi, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided is a cleaning method in a plasma processing apparatus for substrates. This cleaning method comprises: (a) forming a plasma in a chamber of the plasma processing apparatus while a substrate is not being held in place by an electrostatic chuck in the chamber; and (b) supplying voltage to the electrostatic chuck to reduce the charge on the surface of ...