Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090020417 | Methods of sputtering a protective coating on a semiconductor substrate - Methods of depositing a protective coating of a silicon-containing or metallic material onto a semiconductor substrate include sputtering such material from an electrode onto a semiconductor substrate in a plasma processing chamber. The protective material can be deposited onto a multi-layer mask overlying a low-k material and/or onto the low-k material. The methods can be used in dual damascene processes to protect the mask and enhance etch selectivity, to protect the low-k material from carbon depletion during resist strip processes, and/or protect the low-k material from absorption of moisture. | 01-22-2009 |
20090050271 | MASK TRIMMING - A method for etching a dielectric layer is provided. A patterned mask with mask features is formed over a dielectric layer. The mask has isolated areas and dense areas of the mask features. The mask is trimmed by a plurality of cycles, where each cycle includes depositing a deposition layer, and selectively etching the deposition layer and the patterned mask. The selective etching selectively trims the isolated areas of the mask with respect to the dense areas of the mask. The dielectric layer is etched using the thus trimmed mask. The mask is removed. | 02-26-2009 |
20090050603 | MASK TRIMMING WITH ARL ETCH - A method for etching a dielectric layer disposed below an antireflection layer (ARL) is provided. The method comprises (a) forming a patterned mask with mask features over the ARL, the mask having isolated areas and dense areas of the mask features, (b) trimming and opening, and (c) etching the dielectric layer using the trimmed mask. The trimming and opening comprises a plurality of cycles, where each cycle includes (b1) a trim-etch phase which etches the ARL in a bottom of the mask features and selectively trims the isolated areas of the mask with respect to the dense areas, and (b2) a deposition-etch phase which deposits a deposition layer on the mask while further etching the ARL in the bottom of the mask features. The trimming and opening result in a net trimming of the mask in the isolated areas. | 02-26-2009 |
20090165954 | ELECTRICALLY ENHANCING THE CONFINEMENT OF PLASMA - A vacuum plasma processor includes a chamber having a grounded wall and an outlet port. Plasma is excited at a first RF frequency in a chamber region spaced from the wall and outlet port. A. structure confines the plasma to the region while enabling gas to flow from the region to the outlet port. RF electric power at a second frequency connected to the confining structure causes the confining structure to be at a potential different from ground to increase the size of a sheath between the plasma and confining structure and increase the confining structure effectiveness. The region includes an electrode connected to ground by a circuit that is series resonant to the first frequency and includes capacitance of the sheath. | 07-02-2009 |
20100148317 | CRITICAL DIMENSION REDUCTION AND ROUGHNESS CONTROL - A method for forming a feature in an etch layer is provided. A photoresist layer is formed over the etch layer. The photoresist layer is patterned to form photoresist features with photoresist sidewalls. A control layer is formed over the photoresist layer and bottoms of the photoresist features. A conformal layer is deposited over the sidewalls of the photoresist features and control layer to reduce the critical dimensions of the photoresist features. Openings in the control layer are opened with a control layer breakthrough chemistry. Features are etched into the etch layer with an etch chemistry, which is different from the control layer break through chemistry, wherein the control layer is more etch resistant to the etch with the etch chemistry than the conformal layer. | 06-17-2010 |
20110030895 | MASK TRIMMING - A method for etching a dielectric layer is provided. A patterned mask with mask features is formed over a dielectric layer. The mask has isolated areas and dense areas of the mask features. The mask is trimmed by a plurality of cycles, where each cycle includes depositing a deposition layer, and selectively etching the deposition layer and the patterned mask. The selective etching selectively trims the isolated areas of the mask with respect to the dense areas of the mask. The dielectric layer is etched using the thus trimmed mask. The mask is removed. | 02-10-2011 |
20110031214 | VACUUM PROCESSING CHAMBERS INCORPORATING A MOVEABLE FLOW EQUALIZER - A method and apparatus for vacuum processing of a workpiece, the apparatus including a flow equalizer disposed in a vacuum processing chamber between a workpiece support pedestal and a pump port located in a wall of the vacuum processing chamber. In an embodiment, the flow equalizer has a first annular surface concentric about the workpiece support pedestal to provide conductance symmetry about the workpiece support even when the pump port is asymmetrically positioned within the vacuum processing chamber. In an embodiment, the flow equalizer has a second annular surface facing a lower surface of the workpiece support pedestal to restrict conductance as the flow equalizer is moved is response to a chamber pressure control signal. In an embodiment, the apparatus for vacuum processing of a workpiece includes tandem vacuum processing chambers sharing a vacuum pump with each tandem chamber including a flow equalizer to reduce cross-talk between the tandem chambers. | 02-10-2011 |
20120309201 | CRITICAL DIMENSION REDUCTION AND ROUGHNESS CONTROL - A method for forming a feature in an etch layer is provided. A photoresist layer is formed over the etch layer. The photoresist layer is patterned to form photoresist features with photoresist sidewalls. A control layer is formed over the photoresist layer and bottoms of the photoresist features. A conformal layer is deposited over the sidewalls of the photoresist features and control layer to reduce the critical dimensions of the photoresist features. Openings in the control layer are opened with a control layer breakthrough chemistry. Features are etched into the etch layer with an etch chemistry, which is different from the control layer break through chemistry, wherein the control layer is more etch resistant to the etch with the etch chemistry than the conformal layer. | 12-06-2012 |
20130074769 | APPARATUS FOR THE DEPOSITION OF A CONFORMAL FILM ON A SUBSTRATE AND METHODS THEREFOR - A method for depositing a conformal film on a substrate in a plasma processing chamber of a plasma processing system, the substrate being disposed on a chuck, the chuck being coupled to a cooling apparatus, is disclosed. The method includes flowing a first gas mixture into the plasma processing chamber at a first pressure, wherein the first gas mixture includes at least carbon, and wherein the first gas mixture has a condensation temperature. The method also includes cooling the chuck below the condensation temperature using the cooling apparatus thereby allowing at least some of the first gas mixture to condense on a surface of the substrate. The method further includes venting the first gas mixture from the processing chamber; flowing a second gas mixture into the plasma processing chamber, the second gas mixture being different in composition from the first gas mixture; and striking a plasma to form the conformal film. | 03-28-2013 |
20140038311 | METHODS FOR ETCHING MATERIALS USED IN MRAM APPLICATIONS - Embodiments of the invention provide methods and apparatus for fabricating magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) structures on a substrate in magnetoresistive random access memory applications. In one embodiment, a method of forming a MTJ structure on a substrate includes providing a substrate having a insulating tunneling layer disposed between a first and a second ferromagnetic layer disposed on the substrate, wherein the first ferromagnetic layer is disposed on the substrate followed by the insulating tunneling layer and the second ferromagnetic layer sequentially, supplying an ion implantation gas mixture to implant ions into the first ferromagnetic layer exposed by openings defined by the second ferromagnetic layer, and etching the implanted first ferromagnetic layer | 02-06-2014 |
20140248718 | PATTERNING OF MAGNETIC TUNNEL JUNCTION (MTJ) FILM STACKS - Chemical modification of non-volatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) for film stack etching is described. In an example, a method of etching a MTJ film stack includes modifying one or more layers of the MTJ film stack with a phosphorous trifluoride (PF | 09-04-2014 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20100217927 | STORAGE DEVICE AND USER DEVICE INCLUDING THE SAME - A storage device includes a host interface, a buffer memory, a storage medium, and a controller. The host interface is configured to receive storage data and an invalidation command, where the invalidation command is indicative of invalid data among the storage data received by the host interface. The buffer memory is configured to temporarily store the storage data received by the host interface. The controller is configured to execute a transcribe operation in which the storage data temporarily stored in the buffer memory is selectively stored in the storage medium. Further, the controller is responsive to receipt of the invalidation command to execute a logging process when a memory capacity of the invalid data indicated by the invalidation command is equal to or greater than a reference capacity, and to execute an invalidation process when the memory capacity of the invalid data is less than the reference capacity. The logging process includes logging a location of the invalid data, and the invalidation process includes invalidating the invalid data. | 08-26-2010 |
20110123020 | ENDECRYPTOR CAPABLE OF PERFORMING PARALLEL PROCESSING AND ENCRYPTION/DECRYPTION METHOD THEREOF - An encryption/decryption method of an endecryptor including a plurality of endecryption units supporting an XES mode with tweak and ciphertext streaming (XTS) includes dividing an input data stream into consecutive data units; inputting the divided data units to the endecryption units, respectively; and simultaneously processing the input data units at the respective endecryption units. According to the encryption/decryption method, parallel processing is performed to encrypt/decrypt data at higher speed. | 05-26-2011 |
20120144090 | STORAGE DEVICE AND USER DEVICE INCLUDING THE SAME - A storage device includes a host interface, a buffer memory, a storage medium, and a controller. The host interface is configured to receive storage data and an invalidation command, where the invalidation command is indicative of invalid data among the storage data received by the host interface. The buffer memory is configured to temporarily store the storage data received by the host interface. The controller is configured to execute a transcribe operation in which the storage data temporarily stored in the buffer memory is selectively stored in the storage medium. Further, the controller is responsive to receipt of the invalidation command to execute a logging process when a memory capacity of the invalid data indicated by the invalidation command is equal to or greater than a reference capacity. | 06-07-2012 |
20120246729 | DATA STORAGE DEVICES INCLUDING INTEGRATED ANTI-VIRUS CIRCUITS AND METHOD OF OPERATING THE SAME - A data storage device includes a storage medium and a controller circuit configured to be coupled to an external host to provide an interface between the external host and the storage medium, the controller circuit configured to detect a virus carried by a data file transferred to and/or stored in the storage medium. The controller circuit may be further configured to cure the detected virus. | 09-27-2012 |
20150143070 | NONVOLATILE STORAGE AND OPERATING METHODS OF COMPUTING DEVICES INCLUDING THE NONVOLATILE STORAGE - An writing and reading method of a nonvolatile Storage, that includes a first partition and a second partition, and is configured to allow a read operation and a write operation with respect to the second partition only when an authentication is successful in a normal mode, may comprise: assigning a part of a storage space of the second partition to a temporary area by the nonvolatile storage according to a request of changing the normal mode to a secure temporary mode; and/or writing data to the temporary area by the nonvolatile storage. The nonvolatile storage may allow the read operation and with respect to the temporary area without the authentication. | 05-21-2015 |
20150242335 | METHOD OF OPERATING STORAGE DEVICE INCLUDING NONVOLATILE MEMORY AND MEMORY CONTROLLER - Provided is a method for operating a storage device including a nonvolatile memory and a memory controller controlling the nonvolatile memory. The method include receiving a kill request by the memory controller, performing authentication based on the received kill request by the memory controller, and entering a locked state, by the memory controller, according to the kill request when the authentication is successfully performed. In the locked state, the memory controller denies a request for access to a selected area of the nonvolatile memory. | 08-27-2015 |
20150242657 | SELF-ENCRYPTING DRIVE AND USER DEVICE INCLUDING THE SAME - A user device is provided which includes a host providing event indication causing a transition between an authentication state and a non-authentication state. The information storage device of the user device has a nonvolatile storage medium and upon entering the non-authentication state the information storage device provides a part of the storage space of the nonvolatile storage medium as an accessible temporary storage space. | 08-27-2015 |