The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 25, 2016
Filed:
Dec. 14, 2015
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Qingjun Zhou, San Jose, CA (US);
Jungmin Ko, San Jacinto, CA (US);
Tom Choi, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Sean Kang, San Ramon, CA (US);
Jeremiah Pender, San Jose, CA (US);
Srinivas D. Nemani, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Ying Zhang, Santa Clara, CA (US);
APPLIED MATERIALS, INC., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
Embodiments described herein relate to methods for patterning a substrate. Patterning processes, such as double patterning and quadruple patterning processes, may benefit from the embodiments described herein which include performing an inert plasma treatment on a spacer material, performing an etching process on a treated region of the spacer material, and repeating the inert plasma treatment and the etching process to form a desired spacer profile. The inert plasma treatment process may be a biased process and the etching process may be an unbiased process. Various processing parameters, such as process gas ratios and pressures, may be controlled to influence a desired spacer profile.