Ex Parte Halpin et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 16, 2017

13049763 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 16, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O.Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/049,763 03/16/2011 Michael W. Halpin ASMEX.647A 1313
68852 7590 03/20/2017
Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear LLP
(ASMEX)
2040 Main Street
14 th Floor
Irvine, CA 92614
EXAMINER
BRATLAND JR, KENNETH A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1714
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/20/2017 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
jayna.cartee@knobbe.com
efiling @ knobbe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MICHAEL W. HALPIN and PAUL T. JACOBSON
Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,7631
Technology Center 1700
Before WESLEY B. DERRICK, CHRISTOPHER L. OGDEN, and
BRIAN D. RANGE, Administrative Patent Judges.
OGDEN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision2 finally rejecting claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10-12, and 24 in the above-
identified application. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). A
hearing was held on March 6, 2017.
We REVERSE.
1 Appellants identify ASM America Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal
Br. 3, Jan. 7, 2015.
2 Final Office Action, Sept. 4, 2014 [hereinafter Action]; Examiner’s
Answer, Mar. 17, 2015 [hereinafter Answer],
Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,763
BACKGROUND
Appellants’ invention “relates to cleaning semiconductor substrates
prior to forming layers thereupon, and more particularly to bake steps and
subsequent in-situ epitaxial deposition within a single-substrate chemical
vapor deposition (CVD) or atomic layer deposition (ALD) chamber.” Spec.
11. Claim 1 is the sole independent claim on appeal:
1. A method of treating a semiconductor substrate having an
exposed semiconductor region, comprising:
loading the substrate onto a substrate support in a vapor
deposition reaction chamber, the substrate support positioned in
a portion of the reaction chamber configured to receive a
generally horizontal flow of reactant gases above the substrate
support along a gas flow path;
providing an upper bank of substantially linear heat
elements above the substrate support, the heat elements of the
upper bank being oriented substantially perpendicular to the
gas flow path and substantially parallel to an upper surface of
the substrate on the substrate support;
providing a lower bank of heat elements below the
substrate support;
providing power to the upper and lower banks of heat
elements to subject the substrate to a bake in a reducing
environment for less than 45 seconds;
during the bake, maintaining a ratio of power delivered to
the upper bank of heat elements to power delivered to the lower
bank of heat elements at a value greater than a neutral ratio of
power between the upper bank and the lower bank, wherein the
neutral ratio of power is defined as a power ratio that is
optimized to equalize the substrate temperature and the
substrate support temperature;
stabilizing the substrate temperature after the bake; and
depositing a layer by vapor deposition directly over the
semiconductor region after stabilizing the temperature.
Appeal Br. 17 (emphasis added to highlight key limitation).
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Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,763
The method of claim 1 involves using an apparatus such as that shown
in Figure 1, reproduced below:
FIG. 1
Figure 1 depicts a CVD reactor 10 with a chamber 12. Spec. 129. The
reactor includes a plurality of radiant heat sources 13 and 14 supported
outside the chamber 12 to provide heat in the chamber without appreciable
absorption by the chamber walls. Id. 130. The upper heating elements 13
are substantially perpendicular to the reactant gas flow path from inlet port
40 to outlet port 42, and the lower heating elements 14 are oriented
transverse to the upper heating elements 13. Id. ^ 31.
The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection:
I. Claims 1,11, and 24 are rejected under 35U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph as being indefinite. See Action 2—3; Answer 2.3
3 The Examiner does not address this rejection in the Answer, but does not
expressly indicate that it has been withdrawn. See generally Answer.
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Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,763
II. Claims 1—2, 8, 10—12, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Robinson I4 in view of Robinson II,5
and further in view of Brabant.6 See Action 3—10.
III. Claims 4—5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Robinson I in view of Robinson II and Brabant, and
further in view of Nishizawa.7 See Action 10-12.
DISCUSSION
Rejection I
According to the Examiner, claims 1,11, and 24 were indefinite at the
time of the Action because of the claims’ use of the word about. See Action
2—3. Appellants subsequently amended the claims to remove the word
about, see Amendment, Oct. 14, 2014, and the Examiner entered this
amendment, see Advisory Action, Oct. 29, 2014. However, the Examiner
did not expressly indicate in the Answer that this ground of rejection has
been withdrawn. See Answer 2. Unless the Examiner expressly indicates
that a ground of rejection has been withdrawn, the Answer is deemed to
incorporate that ground of rejection. See 37 CFR § 41.39(a)(2). However,
because Appellants have amended claims 1,11, and 24 to address the
rejection, and no further issue regarding the definiteness of these claims has
been raised in the Answer, we conclude that the rejection is moot.
4 Reichler et al., U.S. Patent No. 5,578,270 (issued Nov. 26, 1996).
5 Andrews et al., U.S. Patent No. 6,043,880 (issued Mar. 28, 2000).
6 Earley et al., U.S. Patent No. 5,455,008 (issued Oct. 3, 1995).
7 Reeve, Inf 1 Patent Application No. WO 91/12079 (published Aug. 22,
1991).
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Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,763
Rejections II and III
The Examiner finds that Robinson I teaches a method of treating a
semiconductor substrate using a “reaction chamber configured to receive a
generally horizontal flow of reactant gases above the substrate support along
a gas flow path,” and that the heating elements of an upper bank of heating
elements are oriented parallel to the flow of gas, as required by claim 1.
Action 3^4. While the Examiner notes that Robinson I does not teach that
the upper bank of heating elements is oriented substantially perpendicular to
the gas flow path, the Examiner finds that Robinson II teaches a reactor that
is “provided with upper and lower heat lamps (50) which are arranged at
right angles to each other,” and that the upper bank is “arranged substantially
perpendicular to the flow path defined by the openings (71).” Action 5. The
Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to combine the heater
orientation of Robinson II with the reactor of Robinson I “to provide an
alternative arrangement which permits the substrate to be heated to the
desired temperature.” Id.
The Examiner also finds that Brabant teaches specific process
elements including “subjecting] the substrate to a bake in a reducing
environment for less than 45 seconds,” and concludes that it would have
been obvious to combine a modified Robinson I device with the Brabant
process. Action 5—7.
Appellants correctly argue that Robinson II does not teach generally
horizontal flow of reactant gases, but teaches radial gas flow as depicted in
Figure 1 of that reference, and therefore does not teach the limitation in
claim 1 that the upper bank of heating elements is oriented substantially
perpendicular to a generally horizontal gas flow path. See Appeal Br. 8—10.
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Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,763
In the Answer, the Examiner acknowledges this point, and states that “[t]he
Examiner is not disputing that the use of an axially symmetrical flow
analogous to that shown in Fig. 1 of Robinson II is a preferred embodiment.”
Answer 12. However, the Examiner continues to rely on Robinson II “to
teach, inter alia, that the use of alternative arrangements of linear heating
elements and reactant gas flow directions is known in the art.” Id. The
Examiner finds that in the disclosure of Robinson I,
there are a finite number of positions that the upper heating as­
sembly (32) can assume (i.e., being oriented from 0 to 180°)
while still remaining parallel to the substrate surface (19). Since
each orientation produces a controlled and predictable thermal
profile it would have been within the capabilities of an ordinary
to use routine experimentation to obtain the desired thermal char­
acteristics by rotating the upper heating assembly (32) through a
plurality of orientations ranging over the full range from 0° (i.e.,
parallel to the gas flow) to 90° (i.e., perpendicular to the gas
flow) and then back to 180° (i.e., again parallel to the gas flow).
The motivation for doing so may be found, for example, in Rob­
inson II which, in Figs. 2-6, shows the use of differing arrange­
ments of the upper and lower heat lamps (50) with differently
shaped chambers (49) in order to obtain the desired thermal pro­
file across the substrate surface necessary for a particular appli­
cation.
Id. at 14.
The Examiner bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie
case of obviousness. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir.
1992). Obviousness “concerns whether a skilled artisan not only could have
made but would have been motivated to make the combinations or
modifications of prior art to arrive at the claimed invention.” Belden Inc. v.
Berk-TekLLC, 805 F.3d 1064, 1073 (Fed. Cir. 2015); see also InTouch
Techs., Inc. v. VGO Communications, Inc., 751 F.3d 1327, 1352 (Fed. Cir.
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Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,763
2014). In particular, if “there is a design need or market pressure to solve a
problem and there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions,”
this itself may provide a person of ordinary skill in the art with “good reason
to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp.” KSR Int 7
Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007). However, the Examiner has
failed to articulate a persuasive rationale for why a person of ordinary skill
in the art, at the time of Appellants’ invention, would have had reason to
modify the relied-on reactor of Robinson I to orient heat elements of the
upper bank perpendicular to the gas flow path.
The state of the prior art at the time of invention is persuasively
described by the declaration testimony of Robert M. Vyne, an experienced
process engineer at ASM. See Vyne Deck Tflf 1—2, Aug. 15, 2014. According
to Mr. Vyne, it would have been considered highly disadvantageous in the
art of CVD processing to orient the heating elements of the upper bank other
than parallel to the flow of gas. See Vyne Deck 5—8, Aug. 15, 2014. The
Examiner has provided no persuasive reason to dispute this testimony, and it
is consistent with the prior art disclosures, which express a preference for
this orientation, see Robinson I 3:45—51; Brabant 133. Thus, based on this
record, orienting the upper bank of heaters to be perpendicular to the gas
flow path represented a departure from the design that was known or
preferred in the art.
The Examiner has not shown a persuasive reason for us to conclude
that Appellants’ improvement to the prior art was simply “the predictable use
of prior art elements according to their established functions.” KSR, 550
U.S. at 401. In particular, the Examiner has not pointed to anything in the
record that constitutes a positive teaching to orient the upper bank of heating
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Appeal 2015-005473
Application 13/049,763
elements perpendicular to the horizontal gas flow path. In addition, while
the Examiner is correct that there are a limited number of ways to orient the
upper heater bank in the reactor, the Examiner has not persuasively
identified any design need, market pressure, or other factor that would have
given a person of skill in the art a good reason to employ an orientation of
the upper heat element bank other than the particularly identified
orientations taught by the prior art.
For the above reasons, the Examiner reversibly erred in rejecting
independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Because the Examiner’s
rejection of dependent claims also relies on this error, we determine that the
Examiner also reversibly erred in rejecting claims 2, 4, 5, 8, 10-12, and 24.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1,11, and 24 under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph is vacated as moot.
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10-12, and 24
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed.
REVERSED
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