Ex Parte Chiang et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 26, 2010

10921604 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 26, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte TONY P. CHIANG, KARL F. LEESER, JEFFREY A. BROWN,
and JASON E. BABCOKE
____________

Appeal 2009-014693
Application 10/921,604
Technology Center 1700
____________

Decided: April 26, 2010
____________

Before MICHAEL P. COLAIANNI, JEFFREY T. SMITH, and
BEVERLY A. FRANKLIN, Administrative Patent Judges.

FRANKLIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 2-12. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

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Application 10/921,604

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claim 2 is representative of the subject matter on appeal and is set
forth below:
2. A method for controlling the temperature of a
substrate in an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process chamber
comprising:

retaining a substrate on an electrostatic chuck assembly
by electrostatic attraction, said substrate, when retained by said
chuck assembly, forming a backside gas volume bounded by a
backside surface of said substrate, a surface of the chuck
assembly, and an annular seal;

providing a single backside gas inlet into the electrostatic
chuck assembly connected to a backside gas source;

providing a backside gas by a first gas outlet arrangement
leading to the backside gas volume for supplying said backside
gas under pressure to said backside gas volume, said backside
gas providing a heat transfer medium between said chuck
assembly and said backside surface of said substrate, the first
gas outlet arrangement receiving gas from the single backside
gas inlet; and

creating a pressure gradient across an edge of said
substrate by a second gas outlet arrangement, coupled to the
backside gas source, to prevent reactive gases from causing
deposition on a backside surface of said substrate or deposition
on a surface of said chuck assembly, the second gas outlet
arrangement comprising a first plurality of gas openings
arranged in a ring surrounding the first gas outlet arrangement
and surrounding the backside gas volume outside of the annular
seal, the second gas outlet arrangement receiving gas from the
single backside gas inlet, said step of creating a pressure
gradient across an edge of said substrate comprising outputting
a gas from said first plurality of gas openings to create a
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pressure gradient along an edge of said substrate to reduce the
partial pressure of reactive gases along said edge.

The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Mountsier 5,810,933 Sep. 22. 1998
McMillin 5,835,334 Nov. 10, 1998
Blalock 6,056,850 May 2, 2000
Tsai 6,186,092 B1 Feb. 13, 2001
Tsuruta 2003/0095370 A1 May 22, 2003

THE REJECTION(S)1
1. Claims 2-12 are rejected under 35 USC § 112, first paragraph,
as failing to comply with the written description requirement (the Examiner
deems the amendment to Claim 2, in a December 4, 2007 response, as new
matter not supported by the Specification).
2. Claims 2-4 and 10-12 are rejected under 35 USC § 103(a) as
being obvious over Mountsier in view of Tsai.
3. Claims 5, 7, 8 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Mountsier in view of Tsai in view of McMillin.

1 It is recognized that Appellants have not presented separate arguments
for rejections 3, 4, and 5, reproduced below. However, since Appellants
contend that the combination of Mountsier and Tsai fails to render the
subject matter of independent claim 2 unpatentable, this reasoning would
also apply to the separately rejected dependent claims.

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4. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Mountsier in view of Tsai and McMillin as applied to
claims 5, 7, 8 and 10 and further in view of Blalock.

5. Claims 7 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Mountsier in view of Tsai and McMillin as applied to
claims 5, 7, 8 and 10 and further in view of Tsuruta.

ISSUE
1. Has the Examiner erred in determining the aspect of claim 2
pertaining to the concept that the second gas outlet arrangement 347 receives
gas from a single backside gas inlet 54/312 is not supported by the
Specification?
We answer this question in the affirmative.

2. Has the Examiner erred in determining that the combination of
Mountsier in view of Tsai teaches the aspect of claim 2 wherein both the
first gas outlet arrangement 346 and the second gas outlet arrangement 347
receive gas for a single backside gas inlet 54/312?
We answer this question in the affirmative.

FINDINGS OF FACT
The Examiner does not point to any disclosure showing another gas
source/line entering ESC 6. The Examiner does not explain how the second
gas outlet arrangement 347 receives gas from a source other than the single
backside gas inlet 54/312. See Answer generally.
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The Examiner does not dispute the findings made by Appellants on
pages 10-11 of the Brief regarding certain teachings of Mountsier and Tsai.
See Answer generally, and specifically on pages 9-10.
The Examiner does not address Appellants’ position that the
functionality of the deposition chamber of Mountsier or Tsai would be
destroyed according to the proposal made by the Examiner in his statement
of the rejection. See Answer generally

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
The test for determining compliance with the written
description requirement is whether the disclosure of the
application as originally filed reasonably conveys to the artisan
that the inventor had possession at that time of the later claimed
subject matter, rather than the presence or absence of literal
support in the specification for the claim language. The content
of the drawings may also be considered in determining
compliance with the written description requirement.
In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d 1366, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 1983).

If the proposed modification would render the prior art invention
being modified unsatisfactory for its intended purpose, then there is no
suggestion or motivation to make the proposed modification. In re Gordon,
733 F.2d 900, 902 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
“[R]ejections on obviousness cannot be sustained by mere conclusory
statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with some
rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.’” KSR
Int’l. Co. v. Teleflex Co., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007), quoting In re Kahn, 441
F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006).

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ANALYSIS
1. The 35 USC § 112, first paragraph (written description) rejection

The Examiner does not point to any disclosure showing another gas
source/line entering ESC 6. The Examiner does not explain how the second
gas outlet arrangement 347 receives gas from a source other than the single
backside gas inlet 54/312. See Answer generally. As such, we agree with
Appellants that page 35, lines 20-28 of the Specification and Figures 28 and
30 convey to the artisan that all the orifices in the ESC 6 are connected to
one gas source 52 and that both Figures 28 and 30 identify the same gas line
54 into the ESC 6. Br. 6-8. Kaslow, 707 F.2d at 1375.
We therefore reverse the Examiner’s rejection.
2. The 35 USC § 103 as being obvious over Mountsier in view of Tsai
On pages 10-11 of the Brief, Appellants state:
Even if the Mountsier and Tsai gas channels were used in
a single substrate support assembly and used the same gas (e.g.,
argon), the gas channels would be connected to independent
gas input ports due to the very different functions of the
backside gas and purge gas and the different pressure
requirements of the backside and purge gases. The pressure of
Mountsier's backside gas is carefully varied during a deposition
to set the heat transfer coefficient required for the deposition
process (see Mountsier Abstract). However, the Tsai purge gas
pressure must be a constant optimal pressure to prevent process
gases from depositing on the back edges of the substrate while
such constant pressure is taken into account when controlling
the total gas extraction flow from the process chamber (the
combined gases are the process gases and inert purge gas). In
Tsai, the process gas flow into and out of the CVD chamber
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determines the process gas partial pressure in the chamber and
thus the deposition rate on the substrate. So if the purge gas
pressure during a reaction increased, the process gas pressure in
the chamber would build up and the deposition rate would go
up since the exhaust gas flow remains constant. This is
unacceptable [sic unexceptable], so the Tsai purge gas flow
rate must be fixed. In contrast, the Mountsier backside gas
flow must vary to precisely control the substrate temperature.
Therefore, the variable Mountsier backside gas and the Tsai
purge gas would not be applied through the same inlet into
the substrate support, even if the gases were both argon,
since the flows of the two gases must be separately
controlled in a CVD chamber for proper operation. Tying
the two gas outlets together would destroy the functionality of
the Mountsier or Tsai deposition chamber (by preventing
control of the deposition on the wafer) and could not be
suggested.
The Examiner does not dispute the findings by Appellants regarding
the above-discussed teachings of Mountsier and Tsai. See Answer
generally, and specifically on pages 9-10. Moreover, the Examiner does not
address Appellants’ position that the functionality of the deposition chamber
of Mountsier or Tsai would be destroyed according to the proposal made by
the Examiner in his statement of the rejection. As such, we agree with the
Appellants’ position. Gordon, 733 F.2d at 901-902 (Fed. Cir. 1984). We
also note that the Examiner inadequately responds to Appellants’ position by
stating that “one of ordinary skill in the art would know that connecting the
outlets to a common source of inert gas (say at the gas bottle or at upstream
of pressure controllers in Mountsier [)] would have no problem”. KSR, 550
U.S. at 418, quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
In view of the above, we reverse the rejection.

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CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. The Examiner erred in determining the aspect of claim 2 pertaining to
the concept that the second gas outlet arrangement 347 receives gas for a
single backside gas inlet 54/312 is not supported by the Specification.
2. The Examiner erred in determining that the combination of Mountsier
in view of Tsai teaches the aspect of claim 2 wherein both the first gas outlet
arrangement 346 and the second gas outlet arrangement 347 receive gas
from a single backside gas inlet 54/312.

DECISION
1. The rejection of claims 2-12 under 35 USC § 112, first
paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement is
reversed.
2. The rejection of claims 2-4 and 10-12 under 35 USC § 103 as
being obvious over Mountsier in view of Tsai is reversed.
3. The rejection of claims 5, 7, 8 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Mountsier in view of Tsai in view of McMillin is
reversed.

4. The rejection of claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Mountsier in view of Tsai and McMillin as applied to
claims 5, 7-8 and 10 and further in view of Blalock is reversed.

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5. The rejection of claims 7 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Mountsier in view of Tsai and McMillin as applied
to claims 5, 7, 8 and 10 and further in view of Tsuruta is reversed.

REVERSED

kmm

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