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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1-20 have been examined. Claims 1-20 have been rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2, 4, 9-12, 14, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Schubert et al. (US 2021/0149109).
As per claim 1, Schubert teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by one or more processors of a computing system, cause the computing system to perform actions for optimizing a design for a physical device to be fabricated by a fabrication system (¶ 0041, 0098); the actions comprising:
receiving, by the computing system, an initial design (¶ 0020);
using, by the computing system, a fabrication model to determine structural parameters based on the initial design, wherein using the fabrication model includes applying one or more morphological transformations to the initial design that are predicted to be introduced by the fabrication system (¶ 0037, 0061; Schubert teaches performing simulation on an initial design, including initial structural parameters of the design, comprising fabrication loss calculation logic to determine performance loss; the fabrication loss calculation logic is interpreted as one or more morphological transformations applied by a fabrication model recited in this limitation);
obtaining, by the computing system, a performance metric by simulating performance of the structural parameters (¶ 0037; Schubert teaches performing simulation on an initial design, including initial structural parameters of the design, by simulating performance of the structural parameters);
determining, by the computing system, a loss metric based on the performance metric (¶ 0037); and
backpropagating a gradient of the loss metric to generate an updated design (¶ 0065).
As per claim 2, Schubert teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the actions further comprise repeating the using, obtaining, determining, and backpropagating actions two or more times to generate a further updated design (¶ 0070; Schubert exactly teaches these limitations in this paragraph).
As per claim 4, Schubert teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein applying the one or more morphological transformations to the initial design that are predicted to be introduced by the fabrication system includes:
separately calculating at least two morphological transformations to the initial design (¶ 0092; Schubert teaches generating a convolution kernel to determine first fabrication values, and then a second convolution kernel is performed to determine first fabrication values; this teaching reads onto this limitation in light of the instant application specification ¶ 00112);
stacking results of the at least two morphological transformations (¶ 0092; Schubert teaches combining the two fabrication results corresponding to stacking results as recites); and
applying a convolution to the stacked results to adjust relative effects of the at least two morphological transformations (¶ 0092; Schubert teaches combining the two fabrication results; this teaching reads onto this limitation in light of the instant application specification ¶ 00112).
As per claim 9, Schubert teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the fabrication system is configured to implement a photolithography process (¶ 0041).
As per claim 10, Schubert teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the physical device is a photonic device (¶ 0001).
As per claim 11, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 1. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
As per claim 12, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 2. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
As per claim 14, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 4. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
As per claim 19, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 9. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
As per claim 20, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 10. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
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 3 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schubert et al. (US 2021/0149109) as applied to claims 1 and 11 above, and further in view of Smith et al. (US 2009/0031261).
As per claim 3, Schubert teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1,
Schubert does not teach:
wherein the morphological transformations include at least one of an erosion, a dilation, an opening, or a closing.
However, Smith teaches:
the morphological transformations include at least one of an erosion,
Schubert and Smith are analogous art because in the same field of device fabrication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Schubert and Smith. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such a combination because Smith’s teachings would have helped use process variation and electrical impact to modify the design and manufacture of integrated circuits (Smith, Abstract).
As per claim 13, the computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the morphological transformations include at least one of an erosion, a dilation, an opening, or a closing.
Claims 5, 8, 15, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schubert et al. (US 2021/0149109) as applied to claims 1 and 11 above, and further in view of Su et al. (US 2020/0356011).
As per claim 5, Schubert teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1,
Schubert does not teach:
wherein the actions further comprise training the fabrication model to predict the morphological transformations introduced by the fabrication system.
However, Su teaches:
the actions further comprise training the fabrication model to predict the morphological transformations introduced by the fabrication system (¶ 0055, 0097, 0102; Su teaches a machine learning model specific to a particular device manufacturing process, corresponding to a fabrication process model and training of this machine learning model to predict the transformations, corresponding to the morphological transformations, introduced by the fabrication system).
Schubert and Su are analogous art because in the same field of device fabrication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Schubert and Su. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such a combination because Su’s teachings would have made optical proximity error corrections of a design layout (Su, ¶ 0002).
As per claim 8, Schubert and Su in combination teach the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, Schubert further teaches wherein training the fabrication model includes:
receiving a plurality of designs, wherein the plurality of designs are configured to generate physical devices having outputs that indicate morphological transformations introduced by the fabrication system (¶ 0019, 0021; Schubert teaches design of photonic devices and design parameters or pre-determined designs; ¶ 0037, 0061; Schubert teaches performing simulation on an initial design, including initial structural parameters of the design, comprising fabrication loss calculation logic to determine performance loss; the fabrication loss calculation logic is interpreted as one or more morphological transformations applied by a fabrication model);
receiving a plurality of performance metrics for physical devices fabricated by the fabrication system using the plurality of designs (¶ 0037; Schubert teaches performing simulation on an initial designs, including initial structural parameters of the designs);
determining amounts of the morphological transformations introduced by the fabrication system based on the plurality of performance metrics (¶ 0037: Schubert teaches determining a loss metric based on the performance metric after going through the morphological transformations introduced by the fabrication system; this loss metric corresponds to amounts of the morphological transformations introduced by the fabrication system); and
generating a plurality of predicted structures based on the plurality of designs and the determined amounts of the morphological transformations (¶ 0061; Schubert teaches performing simulation in accordance with the fabrication process to generate structural parameters accounting for loss metric due to fabrication loss; the generated structural parameters are considered a generated plurality of predicted structures as recited in this limitation).
Schubert does not teach:
training the fabrication model using the plurality of designs and the plurality of predicted structures.
However, Su teaches:
training the fabrication model using the design and the plurality of predicted structures (¶ 0062-0063, 0079, 0102; Su teaches training the machine learning model, corresponding to the fabrication model, using the design and the plurality of predicted structures).
As per claim 15, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 5. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
As per claim 18, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 8. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
Claims 6-7 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schubert et al. (US 2021/0149109) in view of Su et al. (US 2020/0356011) as applied to claims 5 and 15 above, and further in view of Gostimirovic et al. (Deep Learning-Based Prediction of Fabrication-Process-Induced Structural Variations in Nanophotonic Devices, ACS Photonics 2022, 9, pp. 2623-2633).
As per claim 6, Schubert and Su in combination teach the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5,
Schubert teaches:
receiving a plurality of designs (¶ 0019, 0021; Schubert teaches design of photonic devices and design parameters or pre-determined designs; this teaching reads onto this limitation);
Schubert and Su do not teach:
receiving a plurality of images of structures of physical devices fabricated by the fabrication system using the plurality of designs; and
training the fabrication model using the plurality of designs and the plurality of images.
However, Gostimirovic teaches:
receiving a plurality of designs (p. 2625 left col. last paragraph – right col. ¶ 1; Gostimirovic teaches using images representing multiple real devices);
receiving a plurality of images of structures of physical devices fabricated by the fabrication system using the plurality of designs (p. 2625 left col. ¶ 2, last paragraph, right col. ¶ 1; Gostimirovic teaches using SEM images of structures representing physical devices fabricated by the fabrication system using the plurality of designs); and
training the fabrication model using the plurality of designs and the plurality of images (p. 2625 left col. ¶ 2).
Schubert, Su, and Gostimirovic are analogous art because in the same field of device fabrication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Schubert, Su, and Gostimirovic. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such a combination because Gostimirovic’s teachings would have predicted expected performance of a device through an extra simulation and made any design corrections prior to fabrication (p. 2623, Abstract).
As per claim 7, Schubert and Su in combination teach the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, Schubert further teaches wherein training the fabrication model includes:
receiving a plurality of designs (¶ 0019, 0021; Schubert teaches design of photonic devices and design parameters or pre-determined designs; this teaching reads onto this limitation); and
generating a plurality of simulated structures based on the plurality of designs using a physical process simulator (¶ 0061; Schubert teaches performing simulation using photonic device simulator based on a fabrication process using input structural parameters to generate output comprising structural parameters; this photonic device simulator corresponds to a physical process simulator).
Schubert and Gostimirovic do not teach:
training the fabrication model using the plurality of designs and the plurality of simulated structures.
However, Su teaches:
training the fabrication model using a design and the plurality of simulated structures (¶ 0101-0103; Su teaches performing simulations and training a machine learning model, corresponding to the fabrication model, using designs and simulated structures).
Schubert, Gostimirovic, and Su are analogous art because in the same field of device fabrication. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Schubert, Gostimirovic, and Su for training the fabrication model using the plurality of designs and the plurality of simulated structures. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such a combination because Su’s teachings would have made optical proximity error corrections of a design layout (Su, ¶ 0002).
As per claim 16, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 6. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
As per claim 17, these limitations have already been discussed in claim 7. They are, hence, rejected for the same reasons.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Cuong Van Luu whose telephone number is 571-272-8572. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday from 8:30 to 5:00.
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/CUONG V LUU/Examiner, Art Unit 2189
/REHANA PERVEEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2189
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