ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,341,050, issued on June 24, was assigned to Toto Ltd. (Fukuoka, Japan).
"Electrostatic chuck" was invented by Akihito Ono (Kitakyushu, Japan), Tetsuro Itoyama (Kitakyushu, Japan), Tomoki Umetsu (Kitakyushu, Japan) and Jumpei Uefuji (Kitakyushu, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An electrostatic chuck includes a base plate, a first heater element, and a plurality of first power feeding terminals. The base plate includes a communicating path having a spiral shape. The first heater element includes a plurality of first zones. The plurality of first power feeding terminals feeds power to the plurality of first zones. Each of the plurality...