Patents Examined by Rodney G. McDonald
  • Patent number: 10727032
    Abstract: A sputtering target that includes at least two consolidated blocks, each block including an alloy including molybdenum in an amount greater than about 30 percent by weight and at least one additional alloying ingredient; and a joint between the at least two consolidated blocks, the joint being free of any microstructure due to an added bonding agent (e.g., powder, foil or otherwise), and being essentially free of any visible joint line the target that is greater than about 200 ?m width (e.g., less than about 50 ?m width). A process for making the target includes hot isostatically pressing, below a temperature of 1080° C., consolidated perform blocks that may be surface prepared (e.g., roughened to a predetermined roughness value) prior to pressing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2020
    Assignee: H.C. STARCK INC.
    Inventors: Gary Alan Rozak, Mark E. Gaydos
  • Patent number: 10727033
    Abstract: A collimator that is biasable is provided. The ability to bias the collimator allows control of the electric field through which the sputter species pass. In some implementations of the present disclosure, a collimator that has a high effective aspect ratio while maintaining a low aspect ratio along the periphery of the collimator of the hexagonal array of the collimator is provided. In some implementations, a collimator with a steep entry edge in the hexagonal array is provided. It has been found that use of a steep entry edge in the collimator reduces deposition overhang and clogging of the cells of the hexagonal array. These various features lead to improve film uniformity and extend the life of the collimator and process kit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 30, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2020
    Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc.
    Inventors: Martin Lee Riker, Fuhong Zhang, Anthony Infante, Zheng Wang
  • Patent number: 10720858
    Abstract: Providing a technique for suppressing dust generation at the time of attraction and detachment of an object to be attracted, and for enabling control the attraction force of the attraction device to be uniform. The attraction device of the present invention includes a main body part having attraction electrodes within a dielectric; and an attraction part for attracting a substrate, provided on a surface of the main body part at an attraction-side. The attraction part includes a contact support part that is in contact with, and supports the substrate and a non-contact part that is not in contact with the substrate. In the attraction part, the volume resistivity of the material of the contact support part is greater than the volume resistivity of the material of the non-contact part.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2020
    Assignee: ULVAC, INC.
    Inventors: Ken Maehira, Kou Fuwa
  • Patent number: 10718048
    Abstract: A sputtering target structure includes a body having a first side and an opposing second side. A first sputtering target is coupled to the first side of the body. The first sputtering target includes a first material. A second sputtering target is coupled to the second side of the body. The second sputtering target includes a second material. A rotation mechanism is coupled to the body and is configured to allow rotation of the body from a first orientation to a second orientation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 29, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2020
    Assignee: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Ping-Yuan Chen, Hung-Cheng Chen, Chih-Hsua Hsieh, Yu-Hsuan Wang
  • Patent number: 10714321
    Abstract: Implementations of the present disclosure relate to a sputtering target for a sputtering chamber used to process a substrate. In one implementation, a sputtering target for a sputtering chamber is provided. The sputtering target comprises a sputtering plate with a backside surface having radially inner, middle and outer regions and an annular-shaped backing plate mounted to the sputtering plate. The backside surface has a plurality of circular grooves which are spaced apart from one another and at least one arcuate channel cutting through the circular grooves and extending from the radially inner region to the radially outer region of sputtering plate. The annular-shaped backing plate defines an open annulus exposing the backside surface of the sputtering plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2020
    Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc.
    Inventors: Brian T. West, Michael S. Cox, Jeonghoon Oh
  • Patent number: 10697057
    Abstract: Embodiments of collimators and process chambers incorporating same are provided herein. In some embodiments, a collimator for use in a substrate processing chamber includes a ring; an adapter surrounding the ring and having an inner annular wall; and a plurality of spokes extending from the inner annular wall and intersecting at a central axis of the collimator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2020
    Assignee: APPLIED MATERIALS, INC.
    Inventors: Goichi Yoshidome, Keith A. Miller, Hamid Tavassoli, Andrew Tomko
  • Patent number: 10689763
    Abstract: There is provided a method, system and computer program product to delayer a layer of a sample, the layer comprising one or more materials, in an ion beam mill by adjusting one or more operating parameters of the ion beam mill and selectively removing each of the one or more materials at their respective predetermined rates. There is also provided a method and system for obtaining rate of removal of a material from a sample in an ion beam mill.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 23, 2020
    Assignee: TECHINSIGHTS INC.
    Inventors: Robert K. Foster, Christopher Pawlowicz, Jason Abt, Ian Jones, Heinz Josef Nentwich
  • Patent number: 10685820
    Abstract: A sputtering target formed from monocrystalline silicon is provided, wherein a sputter surface of the sputtering target is a plane inclined at an angle that exceeds 1° and is less than 10° from a {100} plane. The sputtering target formed from monocrystalline silicon provides a sputtering target which yields superior mechanical strength as well as exhibiting a sputter performance which is equivalent to that of a {100} plane. From a different perspective, in addition to superior mechanical strength, the monocrystalline silicon sputtering target yields superior particle characteristics, sputtering rate, crack resistance, surface shape uniformity and other characteristics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 6, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2020
    Assignee: JX NIPPON MINING & METALS CORPORATION
    Inventors: Hiroshi Takamura, Ryosuke Sakashita, Shuhei Murata
  • Patent number: 10679829
    Abstract: A reactor includes a plasma duct; a gas inlet, at a distal end of the plasma duct, for receiving a gas; a gas outlet at a proximal end of the plasma duct for removing a portion of the gas to generate a gas flow through the plasma duct; a separating baffle positioned between the plasma duct and the gas outlet for restricting gas flow to maintain high pressure in the plasma duct; a shielded cathodic arc source positioned in a cathode chamber at the proximal end; a remote anode, positioned in the plasma duct, for holding a substrate and cooperating with the cathodic arc source to generate an electron flow opposite the gas flow, to initiate a plasma discharge perpendicular to the remote anode at least in vicinity of the remote anode and deposit ions of the plasma discharge on the substrate to form a diamond coating.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2020
    Assignee: Nano-Product Engineering, LLC
    Inventor: Vladimir Gorokhovsky
  • Patent number: 10669192
    Abstract: A coated article is provided with at least one infrared (IR) reflecting layer. The IR reflecting layer may be of silver or the like. In certain example embodiments, a titanium oxide layer is provided over the IR reflecting layer, and it has been found that this surprisingly results in an IR reflecting layer with a lower specific resistivity (SR) thereby permitting thermal properties of the coated article to be improved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 19, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignees: GUARDIAN GLASS, LLC., GUARDIAN EUROPE S.À R.L.
    Inventors: Jochen Butz, Uwe Kriltz, Artur Siwek, Anton Dietrich, Jens-Peter Muller, Jean-Marc Lemmer, Richard Blacker
  • Patent number: 10672596
    Abstract: Embodiments of methods and systems for an inductively coupled plasma sweeping source for an IPVD system. In an embodiment, a method includes providing a large size substrate in a processing chamber. The method may also include generating from a metal source a sputtered metal onto the substrate. Additionally, the method may include creating a high density plasma from a high density plasma source and applying the high density plasma in a sweeping operation without involving moving parts. The method may also include controlling a plurality of operating variables in order to meet one or more plasma processing objectives.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignee: TOKYO ELECTRON LIMITED
    Inventor: Jozef Brcka
  • Patent number: 10655213
    Abstract: There is provided an oxide sintered material containing indium, tungsten, and zinc, the oxide sintered material including: a first crystal phase that is a main component of the oxide sintered material and includes a bixbyite type crystal phase; and a second crystal phase having a content of the zinc higher than a content of the zinc in the first crystal phase, the second crystal phase including particles having an average major axis size of not less than 3 ?m and not more than 50 ?m and having an average aspect ratio of not less than 4 and not more than 50.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2020
    Assignee: Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.
    Inventors: Miki Miyanaga, Kenichi Watatani, Hideaki Awata
  • Patent number: 10648071
    Abstract: Embodiments of process kits and process chambers incorporating same are provided herein. In some embodiments, a process kit includes an adapter having an adapter body and a shield portion radially inward of the adapter body; a heat transfer channel formed in the adapter body; a shadow ring coupled to the adapter such that the shield portion of the adapter extends over a portion of the shadow ring; and a ceramic insulator disposed between the shadow ring and the adapter to electrically isolate the shadow ring from the adapter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2020
    Assignee: APPLIED MATERIALS, INC.
    Inventors: William Johanson, Siew Kit Hoi, John Mazzocco, Kirankumar Savandaiah, Prashant Prabhu
  • Patent number: 10648073
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a sputtering method, which is placing and fixing a fiber Bragg grating base material in a vacuum sputtering cavity, then pumping in a first gas or a second gas or both in the sputtering cavity and maintaining at the best set temperature, pressure and electric field intensity, sputtering a Cr-, Zr-, Ti- or AlTi-contained metal compound target with a sputtering current to the surface of the fiber grating base material to form a high-temperature-resistant film containing said metal nitride, which can enable the sensor to tolerate a working environment with a temperature of over 500° C. and still maintain its efficiency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2020
    Assignee: NATIONAL KAOHSIUNG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
    Inventors: Chia-Chin Chiang, Tso-Sheng Hsieh, Hsiang-Chang Hsu
  • Patent number: 10640862
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a method for forming a film and a method for forming an aluminum nitride film, in which two steps of pre-sputtering having different process parameters are respectively performed before performing a main sputtering, so as to achieve the effect of stabilizing target condition. The method for forming a film of the present disclosure may also form an aluminum nitride film on a substrate, and the aluminum nitride film may serve as a buffer layer between a substrate and a gallium nitride layer in an electronic device, so as to improve film qualities of the aluminum nitride film and the gallium nitride layer and achieve the purpose of improving performance of the electronic device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2020
    Assignee: BEIJING NAURA MICROELECTRONICS EQUIPMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Jun Wang, Boyu Dong, Bingliang Guo, Yujie Geng, Huaichao Ma
  • Patent number: 10643843
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a film forming method and an aluminum nitride film forming method for a semiconductor device. The film forming method for a semiconductor device includes performing multiple sputtering routes sequentially. Each sputtering routes includes: loading a substrate into a chamber; moving a shielding plate between a target and the substrate; introducing an inert gas into the chamber to perform a surface modification process on the target; performing a pre-sputtering to pre-treat a surface of the target; moving the shielding plate away from the substrate, and performing a main sputtering on the substrate to form a film on the substrate; and moving the substrate out of the chamber.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2020
    Assignee: BEIJING NAURA MICROELECTRONICS EQUIPMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Jun Wang, Boyu Dong, Bingliang Guo, Yujie Geng, Huaichao Ma
  • Patent number: 10627352
    Abstract: Apparatus and methods are disclosed for employing an accelerated neutral beam derived from an accelerated gas cluster ion beam as a physical etching beam for providing reduced material mixing at the etched surface, compared to previous techniques. This results in the ability to achieve improved depth profile resolution in measurements by analytical instruments such as SIMS and XPS (or ESCA) analytical instruments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 21, 2020
    Assignee: Exogenesis Corporation
    Inventors: Sean R. Kirkpatrick, Allen R. Kirkpatrick
  • Patent number: 10629581
    Abstract: The present invention generally comprises a semiconductor film and the reactive sputtering process used to deposit the semiconductor film. The sputtering target may comprise pure zinc (i.e., 99.995 atomic percent or greater), which may be doped with aluminum (about 1 atomic percent to about 20 atomic percent) or other doping metals. The zinc target may be reactively sputtered by introducing nitrogen and oxygen to the chamber. The amount of nitrogen may be significantly greater than the amount of oxygen and argon gas. The amount of oxygen may be based upon a turning point of the film structure, the film transmittance, a DC voltage change, or the film conductivity based upon measurements obtained from deposition without the nitrogen containing gas. The reactive sputtering may occur at temperatures from about room temperature up to several hundred degrees Celsius. After deposition, the semiconductor film may be annealed to further improve the film mobility.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 21, 2020
    Assignee: APPLIED MATERIALS, INC.
    Inventor: Yan Ye
  • Patent number: 10622145
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a magnetic thin film deposition chamber and a thin film deposition apparatus. The magnetic thin film deposition chamber includes a main chamber and a bias magnetic field device. A base pedestal is disposed in the main chamber for carrying a to-be-processed workpiece. The bias magnetic field device is configured for forming a horizontal magnetic field above the base pedestal, and the horizontal magnetic field is used to provide an in-plane anisotropy to a magnetized film layer deposited on the to-be-processed workpiece. The thin film deposition chamber provided in present disclosure is capable of forming a horizontal magnetic field above the base pedestal that is sufficient to induce an in-plane anisotropy to the magnetic thin film.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 14, 2020
    Assignee: BEIJING NAURA MICROELECTRONICS EQUIPMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Yujie Yang, Tongwen Zhang, Wei Xia, Peijun Ding, Hougong Wang
  • Patent number: 10622193
    Abstract: A plasma etching apparatus is for etching a substrate and includes at least one chamber, a substrate support positioned within the at least one chamber, and a plasma production device for producing a plasma for use in etching the substrate. The plasma production device comprises an electrically conductive coil which is positioned within the at least one chamber, and the coil is formed from a metallic material which can be sputtered onto an interior surface of the at least one chamber.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 14, 2020
    Assignee: SPTS Technologies Limited
    Inventors: Stephen R Burgess, Anthony Paul Wilby