DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office action is in response to Amendments filed 1/29/2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 18 states that the bad dies comprise the one or more defects but, also, that the defects are on edges of the good dies. These features are mutually exclusive and, therefore, one having ordinary skill in the art would not know how to interpret the requirements of claim 18. For the purpose of this Office action, claim 18 is interpreted as a method to produce dies for a wafer reconstitution, the method comprising: inspecting a blank epitaxial wafer to detect one or more defects; overlaying a dicing scheme on the blank epitaxial wafer with the detected defects; classifying the dies in the dicing scheme as good dies comprising at least a central region with zero defects or bad dies comprising said one or more defects; and dicing the blank epitaxial wafer into dies and transferring the good dies onto a target or a carrier wafer.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bierhuizen (US 2016/0133803 A1) in view of Guo (US 2020/0027797 A1).
Regarding claim 18, Bierhuizen discloses a method to produce dies for a wafer reconstitution, the method comprising:
inspecting (testing semiconductor devices in the wafer; Fig. 2, step 12; ¶ 0022) an epitaxial wafer (¶ 0005) to detect one or more defects (¶ 0023);
overlaying a dicing scheme on the epitaxial wafer with the detected defects (Fig. 2, steps 12);
classifying the dies in the dicing scheme as good dies comprising at least a central region with zero defects or bad dies comprising said one or more defects (¶¶ 0023 and 0030); and
dicing the epitaxial wafer into dies and transferring the good dies onto a target or carrier wafer (¶¶ 0022-0023).
Bierhuizen does not disclose that the epitaxial wafer is a blank epitaxial wafer during these steps.
Guo, in the same field of endeavor, discloses that inspection for defects may also occur while the wafer is a blank epitaxial wafer (¶ 0041). There was a benefit to performing inspection, dicing, and transferring of good dies while the epitaxial wafer is blank in that defects in the wafer can be found early in the manufacturing process so as to avoid the unnecessary deposition of functional layers over an already defective area. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the Application's effective filing date to perform the inspecting, dicing, and transferring steps on a blank epitaxial wafer for this benefit.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-15 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: claims 1 and 13 have been amended to require the dicing scheme to account for peripheral regions with high defect tolerance that depends on a pixel pitch of the pixels to be formed in the dies. These features are neither taught by nor obvious over the closest prior art of record (Bierhuizen (US 2016/0133803 A1) in view of Guo (US 2020/0027797 A1), as discussed in the rejections mailed 11/5/2025).
Claims 2-12 and 14-15 depend from either claim 1 or claim 13 and are, therefore, also allowed.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant arguments concerning the newly added limitations are persuasive as they are not taught by the prior art.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER A CULBERT whose telephone number is (571)272-4893. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joshua Benitez can be reached at (571) 270-1435. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/C.A.C/Examiner, Art Unit 2815
/JOSHUA BENITEZ ROSARIO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2815
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