Patents by Inventor Duncan W. Mills

Duncan W. Mills has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Etch metric sensitivity for endpoint detection
    Patent number: 10032681
    Abstract: Monitoring a geometric parameter value for one or more features produced on a substrate during an etch process may involve: (a) measuring optical signals produced by optical energy interacting with features being etched on the substrate; (b) providing a subset of the measured optical signals, wherein the subset is defined by a range where optical signals were determined to correlate with target geometric parameter values for features; (c) applying the subset of optical signals to a model configured to predict the target geometric parameter values from the measured optical signals; (d) determining, from the model, a current value of the target geometric parameter of the features being etched; (e) comparing the current value of the target geometric parameter of the features being etched to an etch process endpoint value for the target geometric parameter; and (f) repeating (a)-(e) until the comparing in (e) indicates that the current value of the target geometric parameter of the features being etched has reach
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 24, 2018
    Assignee: Lam Research Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew D. Bailey, III, Mehmet Derya Tetiker, Duncan W. Mills
  • ETCH METRIC SENSITIVITY FOR ENDPOINT DETECTION
    Publication number: 20170256463
    Abstract: Monitoring a geometric parameter value for one or more features produced on a substrate during an etch process may involve: (a) measuring optical signals produced by optical energy interacting with features being etched on the substrate; (b) providing a subset of the measured optical signals, wherein the subset is defined by a range where optical signals were determined to correlate with target geometric parameter values for features; (c) applying the subset of optical signals to a model configured to predict the target geometric parameter values from the measured optical signals; (d) determining, from the model, a current value of the target geometric parameter of the features being etched; (e) comparing the current value of the target geometric parameter of the features being etched to an etch process endpoint value for the target geometric parameter; and (f) repeating (a)-(e) until the comparing in (e) indicates that the current value of the target geometric parameter of the features being etched has reach
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 2, 2016
    Publication date: September 7, 2017
    Inventors: Andrew D. Bailey, III, Mehmet Derya Tetiker, Duncan W. Mills