Tungsten case

In spite of some unfortunate statements, as in the tungsten case, the law never intended a rule which would declare otherwise patentable compositions of matter to be unpatentable merely because their creation might be conceived to be the handiwork of nature rather than of man. The courts merely desired in the principle-of-nature cases to force the inventor to claim only the tangible manifestations of his contribution. As to those cases where products have been declared unpatentable, the courts may be said to have been looking primarily to the test as to the presence or absence of novelty or invention. 

Figure 3.14. Kc is in the blanket tungsten case (a) determined by the glue iayer/Si interface whereas in the selective case (b) it is the CVD-W/Si interface.

The main cause of anode wear is electrochemical oxidation or sulfur attack of anodic surfaces. As copper is not sufficiently resistant to this type of attack, thin caps of oxidation and sulfur-resistant material, such as platinum, are bra2ed to the surface, as shown in Eigure 15a. The thick platinum reinforcement at the upstream corner protects against excessive erosion where Hall effect-induced current concentrations occur, and the interelectrode cap protects the upstream edge from anodic corrosion caused by interelectrode current leakage. The tungsten undedayment protects the copper substrate in case the platinum cladding fails. 

In many cases, the deposited material can retain some of the original chemical constituents, such as hydrogen in siUcon from the deposition from silane, or chlorine in tungsten from the deposition from WCl. This can be beneficial or detrimental. For example, the retention of hydrogen in siUcon allows the deposition of amorphous siUcon, a-Si H, which is used in solar cells, but the retention of chlorine in tungsten is detrimental to subsequent fusion welding of the tungsten. 

CVD processing can be used to provide selective deposition on certain areas of a surface. Selective tungsten CVD is used to fill vias or holes selectively through siUcon oxide layers in siUcon-device technology. In this case, the siUcon from the substrate catalyzes the reduction of tungsten hexafluoride, whereas the siUcon oxide does not. Selective CVD deposition can also be accompHshed using lasers or focused electron beams for local heating. 

As in the case of many metal—ahoy systems, weld ductihty is not as good as that of the base metal. Satisfactory welds can be made in vanadium ahoys provided the fusion zone and the heat-affected zone (HAZ) are protected from contamination during welding. Satisfactory welds can be made by a variety of weld methods, including electron-beam and tungsten-inert-gas (TIG) methods. It is also likely that satisfactory welds can be made by advanced methods, eg, laser and plasma techniques (see Lasers Plasma technology). 

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