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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's arguments filed on November 13, 2025 and claims filed on January 12, 2026 have been entered.
Claims 1 and 8 are amended, claim 6 has been canceled, claims 1-5, 8-10, and 12-15 are pending, with claims 8-10 and 12-15 currently withdrawn from consideration.
Response to Amendment
The amendments to the claims filed January 12, 2026 have been entered. Applicant’s amendments to the claims have failed to overcome each and every rejection set forth in the previous Office Action filed September 17, 2025.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed November 13, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues on pages 5-6 that Sheng in view of Pok fails to disclose currently presented claim 1. This argument is not persuasive for the reasons explained in the rejection of claims below. For example, on page 6, Applicant contends that, as disclosed by Sheng, “the contacts of 1401, the fuse terminal 172 and the fuse section 175 are formed by several different materials,” however this argument is not persuasive because, as explicitly disclosed by Sheng, metal level 150, including fuse terminal 172 and the fuse section 175, and contact level 140, including the contacts of 1401, may be formed of the same material (Sheng, [0023]).
In response to applicant's arguments on page 6 that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, “the accumulated charges on the pad can be transmitted to the transmission structure with higher efficiency than Sheng,” it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., the efficiency of charge transmission, and optimal values of parasitic resistance and capacitance) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
In response to Applicant’s argument on page 6 that the dependent claims 2-5 are patentably distinct over the prior art, and are also allowable based at least on their dependency from the independent claim 1, as amended, see the rejections of the claims below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sheng et al., US 2017/0092584 A1 (hereinafter Sheng) in view of Pok et al., US 2017/0373494 A1 (hereinafter Pok).
Regarding claim 1, as amended, Sheng teaches a plasma damage protection device, disposed in an integrated circuit, and comprising:
a switch component (Sheng, FIG. 1a, discharger 160, shown outlined with dashed line, includes a diode, i.e., a switch component, [see para 0033-0034]) coupled between a reference power rail (Sheng, FIG. 1a, a person having ordinary skill in the art would recognize that substrate 105 is analogous to a ground reference, i.e., a reference power rail, [see para 0033]) and a pad (Sheng, FIG. 1a, device well contact 112 [see para 0034]), and being turned on or cut off according to a charge (Sheng, the diode conducts electricity, i.e., is turned on, or cut off, according to the presence of and the polarity of a charge [see para 0034]) on the pad (Sheng, a plasma charge on the device well is equivalent to a charge on the pad, [0033]), wherein the pad is coupled to a protected component (Sheng, FIG. 1a, device well contact 112 is coupled to HV device well 110, i.e., a protected component [0018]); and
a transmission structure (Sheng, FIG. 1a, second fuse terminal 174, [see para 0035]) configured to transmit the charge on the pad (Sheng, “formed of a conductive material” [para 0035], i.e., capable of transmitting the charge) to a control end of the switch component (Sheng, FIG. 1a, second diode terminal 164 [see para 0034-0037]; for examination purposes, either end of diode, i.e., the switch component, is analogous to a control end) during a back-end-of-line process (Sheng, "during processing, such as BEOL processing, the temporary discharge path exists to discharge the plasma charges stored in the device well" [para 0039]),
wherein the switch component (Sheng, FIG. 1a, diode) is turned on according to the charge on the pad during the back-end-of-line process (Sheng, the diode conducts electricity, i.e., is turned on, or cut off, according to the presence of and the polarity of a charge during BEOL processing, “the diode is configured to discharge plasma charges from the device well to the substrate,” [see para 0033-0034]; “The temporary discharge path is functional during the BEOL processing to discharge plasma charge from the floating well to the discharge region of the substrate,” [0006]),
a transmission wire (Sheng, FIG. 1a, substrate contact 116) configured to be connected between the reference power rail and the control end (Sheng, FIG. 1a, substrate contact 116, i.e., the transmission wire, is shown in contact with, i.e., connected between, substrate 105, i.e., the reference power rail, and second diode terminal 164, i.e., the control end [see para 0037]) of the switch component (Sheng, FIG. 1a, discharger 160, shown outlined with dashed line, includes a diode, i.e., a switch component, [see para 0033-0034]) after the back-end-of-line process (Sheng, FIG. 1b, “after BEOL processing is completed, the electronic fuse [i.e., the connection structure] of the fuse unit is blown or destroyed [i.e., removed], as shown in FIG. 1b” [0039], FIG. 1b shows substrate contact 116, i.e., the transmission wire, remains unchanged after the back-end-of-line process), wherein the transmission wire is configured to transmit a reference voltage of the reference power rail to the control end of the switch component (Sheng, FIG. 1a, substrate contact 116, i.e., the transmission wire, is shown in contact with, i.e., connected between, substrate 105, i.e., the reference power rail, and second diode terminal 164, i.e., the control end, [see para 0037-0038]) to cut-off the switch component after the back-end-of-line process (Sheng, FIG. 1b, “after BEOL processing is completed [i.e., after the back-end-of-line process], the electronic fuse [i.e., the switch component] of the fuse unit is blown or destroyed [i.e., cut-off], as shown in FIG. 1b” [0039]; “after the BEOL processing is completed, the discharge path from the floating device well to the substrate is rendered non-functional. For example, the fuses in the discharge path are blown, disconnecting the floating device well 110 from the substrate,” [0041]),
wherein the pad (Sheng, FIG. 1a, device well contact 112 [see para 0034]) and the transmission structure (Sheng, FIG. 1a, second fuse terminal 174, [see para 0035]) are formed by a plurality of same metal layers (Sheng, see FIG. 1a, device well contact 112 [the pad] and second fuse terminal 174 [the transmission structure] are formed of same metal layers, [see para 0023, 0027]; “ the conductors and contacts may be formed of a metal … the conductors and contacts may be formed of the same material,” [0023]) and the pad and the transmission structure are directly connected during the back-end-of-line process (Sheng, FIG. 1a shows device well contact 112 [the pad] and second fuse terminal 174 [the transmission structure] directly connected by fuse unit 170 and fuse section 175 during back-end-of-line processing, “the temporary discharge path is functional during back-end-of-line (BEOL) processing to discharge plasma charge from the floating well [the pad] to the discharge region of the substrate [via connection to the transmission structure],” [0005]).
Although Sheng does not explicitly teach that the switch component is coupled to a reference power rail, a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the substrate 105 of Sheng is functionally equivalent to a ground reference, i.e., a reference power rail, [see para 0006-0007; 0033-0034].
Sheng is silent regarding: wherein when accumulated charges of applied plasma on the pad exceeds an expected amount, the switch component is turned on according to the accumulated charges to dissipate the accumulated charges on the pad to the reference power rail.
However, Pok, in the same field of endeavor, teaches an ESD protection solution utilizing a MOSFET or a bipolar transistor (a switch component) to dissipate charges on the protected component to the reference power rail when the charge rises sufficiently to trigger the switch component, i.e., when the accumulated charge exceeds an expected amount. See Pok, FIG. 2 and associated text at paragraphs [0008 – 0009].
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute the switch component diode as taught by Sheng for the ESD MOSFET as taught by Pok because Pok expressly recognizes that a transistor offers improved ESD protection vs. a diode: “the improved ESD protection is because the clamping action does not need to occur through a diode and VIN/VSS rail bus resistance,” [see para 0009]. The motivation for doing so would be, as expressly recognized by Pok, to prevent destructive harm from occurring due to ESD events during manufacturing while also preventing erroneous operation of the device caused by inadvertent ESD protection circuit triggering, therefore improving device performance and reliability.
Regarding claim 2, Sheng in view of Pok teaches the plasma damage protection device according to claim 1, further comprising: a connection structure (Sheng, FIG. 1a, fuse section 175) configured to connect the pad (Sheng, FIG. 1a, device well contact 112, [see para 0034]) and the transmission structure (Sheng, FIG. 1a, second fuse terminal 174), wherein the connection structure is removed after the back-end-of-line process (Sheng, “after BEOL processing is completed, the electronic fuse [i.e., the connection structure] of the fuse unit is blown or destroyed [i.e., removed], as shown in FIG. 1b” [0039]).
Regarding claim 3, Sheng teaches nearly every element of claim 3 but is silent regarding: wherein the switch component comprises: a transistor having a first end coupled to the pad, a control end coupled to the transmission structure, and a second end and a base end each coupled to the reference power rail.
However, Pok teaches: wherein the switch component comprises: a transistor (Pok, FIG. 2, ESD MOSFET 2) having a first end coupled to the pad (Pok, FIG. 2, first end of ESD MOSFET 2 is shown coupled to OUT line of device 200, i.e., the pad, [see para 0009]), a control end (Pok, ESD MOSFET 2 is activated by a pulse on clamp enable line, i.e. control end, [para 0008-0009]) coupled to the transmission structure (Pok, see FIG. 2, OUT line of device, i.e., the pad, is shown coupled to the RC detector which transmits the charge on the OUT line, i.e. the pad, to the clamp enable line, i.e., the control end; the RC detector is functionally equivalent to the transmission structure, [see para 0008-0009]), and a second end and a base end each coupled to the reference power rail (Pok, FIG. 2, second end and base end of ESD MOSFET 2 shown coupled to VSS supply rail, either directly or via LDO/PA, [see para 0009]).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute the switch component diode as taught by Sheng for the ESD MOSFET as taught by Pok because Pok expressly recognizes that a MOSFET offers improved ESD protection vs. a diode: “the improved ESD protection is because the clamping action does not need to occur through a diode and VIN/VSS rail bus resistance,” [see para 0009].
Regarding claim 4, Sheng in view of Pok teaches the plasma damage protection device according to claim 3, wherein the transistor (Pok, ESD MOSFET 2) is an N-type transistor (Pok, ESD MOSFET 2 is activated by a pulse on the clamp enable line, i.e., an N-type transistor, [see para 0009]), and when the charge on the pad has a positive polarity (Pok, “a positive ESD pulse,” [see para 0009]), the transistor is turned on according to the charge on the pad on the control end (“voltage clamp ESD MOSFET 2 clamps the pin out to the vss supply rail,”, i.e., the transistor is turned on [para 0009]).
Regarding claim 5, Sheng in view of Pok teaches the plasma damage protection device according to claim 3, wherein the transistor (Pok, ESD MOSFET 2) is an N-type transistor (Pok, ESD MOSFET 2 is activated by a pulse on the clamp enable line, i.e., an N-type transistor, [see para 0009]), and when the charge on the pad has a negative polarity (“a negative ESD pulse” [para 0025]), a P-N junction formed between the base end of the transistor and the first end of the transistor is turned on (a person having ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the P-N junction is formed, i.e., turned on, in the inherent body diode of the ESD MOSFET, i.e., the transistor, [see Pok, para 0025] when the charge on the pad has a negative polarity).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DEREK NIELSEN whose telephone number is (703)756-1266. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:30 A.M. - 5:30 P.M..
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/D.L.N./Examiner, Art Unit 2899
/Brent A. Fairbanks/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2899
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