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 .
Response to Amendment
Regarding the Miscellaneous Action PTO-90C mailed 11/17/2025, after reconsideration of the reply originally filed on 11/03/2025, the amended claim set and arguments are considered adequate to a response to a Non-Final Office Action. The amendment filed 11/03/2025 has been entered. Applicant’s amendments to the specification and claims have overcome each and every objection and 112(b) rejection previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed 08/07/2025.
Claim Status
Claims 13-15, 17, 19-21, and 33 are pending.
Claims 29-32 are currently withdrawn.
Claims 13, 19 and 21 are currently amended.
Claim 33 is newly added.
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 13-15, 17, 20-21, and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (KR 20160129300 A, using attached English machine translation), in view of Saito (JP 2010135727 A, using attached English machine translation).
Regarding claim 13, Kim teaches an upper electrode mechanism of a semiconductor process apparatus (Fig. 1, L94, antenna 31 for apparatus for semiconductor manufacturing, L45) comprising:
a radio frequency (RF) coil including two parallelly-connected branches (Fig. 2, L152-158, ICP antenna 31 has third coil piece 313 and second coil piece 312 connected in parallel, which connect to RF power source);
two current sensors each arranged on a respective one of the two branches and configured to detect a branch current of a corresponding one of the two branches (Fig. 2, L171-178, current sensor VS2 is arranged on second coil piece 312 and current sensor VS3 is arranged on third coil piece 313); and
a current adjustment device connected to the RF coil (Fig. 2, L152-158, variable capacitors VC2 and VC3 are connected to coil pieces 312 and 313), configured to adjust the branch current of at least one branch of the two branches according to the detected branch currents to cause the branch currents of the two branches to be equal (L254-267, current value of each coil piece of antenna are measured, if it is determined there is a significant difference in the coil piece values, the variable capacitors are adjusted to eliminate the difference), and including:
a first connection connected to an RF source through a matcher (Fig. 3, L243-247, antenna 31 is connected to RF power source 33 through impedance matcher 32); and
a second connection connected to the two branches (Fig. 2, coil pieces 312 and 313 share a common connection to chamber C/H).
Kim fails to explicitly teach wherein the first connection and second connection are bars, a mobile connection bar movably connected to the first connection bar and the second connection bar, a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the first connection bar being movable along the first connection bar, and a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the second connection bar being movable along the second connection.
However, Saito teaches wherein the first connection and second connection are bars (Saito, Fig. 11, L560-564, taps 104a and 104b), a mobile connection bar movably connected to the first connection bar and the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 11, L560-564, member 101 extends between tap 104a and tap 104b, and is changeable in position across the taps), a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the first connection bar being movable along the first connection bar (Saito, Fig. 12, L560-564, member 101 connects to tap 104a at hole 105), and a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the second connection bar being movable along the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 12, L560-564, member 101 connects to tap 104b at hole 105).
Saito is considered analogous art to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of semiconductor processing. It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of filing to have utilized the tap bars of Saito in place of the connections to the match and the connections of the parallelly connected coil pieces of Kim as doing so, along with the vertical connecting member of Saito, would add the ability to manually adjust the impedance (and thus current) across the coils, as the impedance is a function of the length of the path from the RF feeding point to the grounding point (Saito, L45-47), separate from the existing variable capacitor current adjustment mechanism of Kim.
Regarding claim 14, Kim teaches wherein the current adjustment device includes a capacitance adjustment assembly connected to the two branches and configured to adjust a capacitance of the at least one branch (L254-267, current value of each coil piece of antenna are measured via current sensors VS2/VS3, if it is determined there is a significant difference in the coil piece values, the variable capacitors VC2/VC3 are adjusted to eliminate the difference).
Regarding claim 15, Kim teaches wherein the capacitance adjustment assembly includes two adjustable capacitors arranged on the two branches in a one-to-one correspondence (Fig. 2, L152-158, variable capacitor VC2 is connected to coil piece 312 and variable capacitor VC3 is connected to coil piece 313).
Regarding claim 17, Kim fails to explicitly teach wherein: the first connection bar and the second connection bar are parallel to each other; the mobile connection bar is perpendicular to the first connection bar and the second connection bar; and two ends of the mobile connection bar are movably connected to the first connection bar and the second connection bar.
However, Saito teaches wherein: the first connection bar and the second connection bar are parallel to each other (Saito, Fig. 11, L560-564, taps 104a and 104b are parallel to one another); the mobile connection bar is perpendicular to the first connection bar and the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 11, L560-564, member 101 is located perpendicular to tap 104a/104b); and two ends of the mobile connection bar are movably connected to the first connection bar and the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 11, L560-564, member 101 extends between tap 104a and tap 104b, and is changeable in position across the taps via plural locations of holes 105 across both taps 104a/104b).
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of filing to have utilized the tap bars of Saito in place of the connections to the match and the connections of the parallelly connected coil pieces of Kim as doing so, along with the vertical connecting member of Saito, would add the ability to manually adjust the impedance (and thus current) across the coils, as the impedance is a function of the length of the path from the RF feeding point to the grounding point (Saito, L45-47), separate from the existing variable capacitor current adjustment mechanism of Kim.
Regarding claim 20, Kim teaches wherein: the RF coil includes an inner coil and an outer coil (Fig. 1, L101-105, coil piece 311 is an inner coil and coil pieces 312/313 are outer coils); and each of the outer coil and the inner coil includes at least two parallelly-connected branches (Figs. 1 and 2, L101-105, outer coil pieces 312/313 are parallelly connected).
Regarding claim 21, Kim teaches a semiconductor processing apparatus (Fig. 1, L218-220, plasma generating apparatus 1 within which a workpiece 14 is placed) comprising: a process chamber; and
an upper electrode mechanism provided at the process chamber (Fig. 3, L94, antenna 31 is located on chamber 11) and including:
a radio frequency (RF) coil including two parallelly-connected branches (Fig. 2, L152-158, ICP antenna 31 has third coil piece 313 and second coil piece 312 connected in parallel, which connect to RF power source);
two current sensors each arranged on a respective one of the two branches and configured to detect a branch current of a corresponding one of the two branches (Fig. 2, L171-178, current sensor VS2 is arranged on second coil piece 312 and current sensor VS3 is arranged on third coil piece 313); and
a current adjustment device connected to the RF coil (Fig. 2, L152-158, variable capacitors VC2 and VC3 are connected to coil pieces 312 and 313), configured to adjust the branch current of at least one branch of the two branches according to the detected branch currents to cause the branch currents of the two branches to be equal (L254-267, current value of each coil piece of antenna are measured, if it is determined there is a significant difference in the coil piece values, the variable capacitors are adjusted to eliminate the difference), and including:
a first connection connected to an RF source through a matcher (Fig. 3, L243-247, antenna 31 is connected to RF power source 33 through impedance matcher 32); and
a second connection connected to the two branches (Fig. 2, coil pieces 312 and 313 share a common connection to chamber C/H).
Kim fails to teach wherein the first connection and second connection are bars, a mobile connection bar movably connected to the first connection bar and the second connection, a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the first connection bar being movable along the first connection bar, and a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the second connection bar being movable along the second connection bar.
However, Saito teaches wherein the first connection and second connection are bars (Saito, Fig. 11, L560-564, taps 104a and 104b), a mobile connection bar movably connected to the first connection bar and the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 11, L560-564, member 101 extends between tap 104a and tap 104b, and is changeable in position across the taps), a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the first connection bar being movable along the first connection bar (Saito, Fig. 12, L560-564, member 101 connects to tap 104a at hole 105), and a connection point between the mobile connection bar and the second connection bar being movable along the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 12, L560-564, member 101 connects to tap 104b at hole 105).
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of filing to have utilized the tap bars of Saito in place of the connections to the match and the connections of the parallelly connected coil pieces of Kim as doing so, along with the vertical connecting member of Saito, would add the ability to manually adjust the impedance (and thus current) across the coils, as the impedance is a function of the length of the path from the RF feeding point to the grounding point (Saito, L45-47), separate from the existing variable capacitor current adjustment mechanism of Kim.
Regarding claim 33, Kim teaches wherein each of the two branches comprises a respective one of a first coil set or a second coil set (Fig. 1, L101-105, second coil piece 312 is made up of coil parts 312a-312c, third coil piece 313 is made up of coil parts 313a-313c, where the antenna may be configured to include an appropriate number of piece(s) as desired, such as first coil piece 311 is made up of coil parts 311a-c provided in plural), the first coil set and the second coil set have a same number of turns and opposite winding directions (Fig. 1, coil pieces 312 and 313 have the same number of turns and opposite winding directions; for instance, coil parts 312a and 313a, 312b and 313b, and 312c and 313c are all provided 180° degrees from each other across the plane of the antenna).
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (KR 20160129300 A) in view of Saito (JP 2010135727 A), as applied in claims 13-15, 17, and 20-21, and further in view of Hoon (KR 20060100873 A, using attached English machine translation), Yamagishi (US 20050098116 A1), and Choi (US 20180340258 A1).
The limitations of claims 13-15, 17, and 20-21 are set forth above.
Regarding claim 19, Kim fails to teach wherein the current adjustment device further includes:
two connection assemblies configured to movably connect the two ends of the mobile connection bar to the first connection bar and the second connection bar, each of the two connection assemblies including:
a first washer movably connected to one of the first connection bar and the second connection bar;
a second washer arranged opposite to the first washer;
an elastic element arranged between the first washer and the second washer; and
a screw passing from a side of the second washer away from the first washer through, in sequence, a through-hole of the second washer, the elastic element, a through- hole of the first washer, a stripe-shaped groove of the one of the first connection bar and the second connection bar, and threadedly connected to a threaded hole at one of the two ends of the mobile connection bar:
wherein: each of the first connection bar and the second connection bar includes a stripe-shaped groove;
each of the two ends of the mobile connection bar inludes a threaded hole cooperating with the screw;
each of the first washer and the second washer includes a through-hole for the screw to pass through; and
the connection assembly is attached to a corresponding one of the first connection bar or the second connection bar.
However, Saito teaches two connection assemblies configured to movably connect the two ends of the mobile connection bar to the first connection bar and the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 12, L560-564, screws 106 secure member 101 to taps 104a/104b via holes 103 and 105), and the connection assembly is attached to a corresponding one of the first connection bar or the second connection bar (Saito, Fig. 12, L560-564, screws 106 secure member 101 to taps 104a/104b via holes 103 and 105).
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of filing to have utilized the tap bars of Saito in place of the connections to the match and the connections of the parallelly connected coil pieces of Kim as doing so, along with the vertical connecting member of Saito, would add the ability to manually adjust the impedance (and thus current) across the coils, as the impedance is a function of the length of the path from the RF feeding point to the grounding point (Saito, L45-47), separate from the existing variable capacitor current adjustment mechanism of Kim.
Kim modified by Saito fails to teach a first washer movably connected to one of the first connection bar and the second connection;
a second washer arranged opposite to the first washer;
an elastic element arranged between the first washer and the second washer; and
a screw passing from a side of the second washer away from the first washer through, in sequence, a through-hole of the second washer, the elastic element, a through- hole of the first washer, a stripe-shaped groove of the one of the first connection bar and the second connection, and threadedly connected to a threaded hole at one of the two ends of the mobile connection bar:
wherein: each of the first connection bar and the second connection bar includes a stripe-shaped groove;
each of the two ends of the mobile connection bar includes a threaded hole cooperating with the screw; and
each of the first washer and the second washer includes a through-hole for the screw to pass through.
However, Hoon teaches a first washer movably connected to one of the first connection bar and the second connection bar (Hoon, Fig. 3, L69-95, washer 400);
a second washer arranged opposite to the first washer (Hoon, Fig. 3, L69-95, second washer 400);
an elastic element arranged between the first washer and the second washer (Hoon, Fig. 3, L69-95, spring 300 is sandwiched between first and second washer 400); and
a screw passing from a side of the second washer away from the first washer through, in sequence, a through-hole of the second washer, the elastic element, a through- hole of the first washer (Hoon, Fig. 3, screw 200 passes in order through first washer 400, spring 300, and second washer 400), and threadedly connected to a threaded hole at one of the two ends of the mobile connection bar (Hoon, Figs. 1 and 3, screws 200 fix the coil 600 by screwing into the plasma equipment body):
each of the two ends of the mobile connection bar including a threaded hole cooperating with the screw (Hoon, Figs. 1 and 3, screws 200 fix the coil 600 by screwing into the plasma equipment body); and
each of the first washer and the second washer includes a through-hole for the screw to pass through (Hoon, Fig. 3, screw 200 passes in order through first washer 400, spring 300, and second washer 400).
Hoon is considered analogous art to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of semiconductor processing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have incorporated the spring sandwich by two plastic washers into the screw securing assembly of Saito as doing so would allow one to secure the RF members to one another with a specific constant force (Hoon, L49).
Modified Kim fails to teach a stripe-shaped groove of the one of the first connection bar and the second connection bar, and wherein: each of the first connection bar and the second connection bar includes a stripe-shaped groove.
However, Yamagishi teaches a stripe-shaped groove of the one of the first connection bar and the second connection bar (Yamagishi, Fig. 4 and 5, [0035]-[0036], copper plate ends 32b/32c each have a long hole 38/39 through which the copper plates are adjustably secured to copper plates 31b and 33b), and wherein: each of the first connection bar and the second connection bar includes a stripe-shaped groove (Yamagishi, Fig. 4 and 5, [0035]-[0036], copper plate ends 32b/32c each have a long hole 38/39 through which the copper plates are adjustably secured to copper plates 31b and 33b).
Yamagishi is considered analogous art to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of semiconductor processing. The long holes of Yamagishi allow for manual adjustment of the length of the RF-powered path to effectively alter the electrical characteristics (Yamagishi, [0036]), in the same manner of the holes of Saito (Saito, L45-47). It would have been obvious to substitute the long holes of Yamagishi for the holes of Saito as doing so allows for altering the positional relationship of the mounted parts to one another without having to completely remove the screws from the threaded holes, as shown by Figs. 4 and 5 of Choi (US 20180340258 A1). Fig. 4 of Choi shows ground strap GDS1 having rectangular opening GOP can move in position between ground strap parts BK1a and BS1A without fully removing screws BT1a/BT1b (Choi, [0095]), in contrast to Fig. 5 of Choi where opening GOP is replaced with discrete holes OP1a and OP1b, such that once the screws are in place, the strap GDS1 is fixed in position (Choi, [0098]).
Response to Arguments
In the Applicant’s response filed 11/03/2025, the Applicant states traversal of the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of claims 13-15, 17, 20, and 21 as being unpatentable over Kim in view of Saito, and the rejection of claim 19 as being unpatentable over Kim in view of Saito, Hoon, Yamagishi, and Choi. In lieu of providing how the claims avoid the references or distinguish from them, the Examiner maintains the form and substance of the rejections from the Non-Final Office Action into this Final Office Action.
In the Applicant’s response, the Applicant asserts that none of the cited prior art, particularly Kim, teach the claim limitations of newly added claim 33, particularly the limitations “the first coil set and the second coil set have a same number of turns and opposite winding directions”, which is intended to further narrow the subject matter of claim 13. In response, the Examiner has rejected claim 33 in the 103 rejections section above. The Examiner asserts that the coil pieces 312 and 313 of reference Kim have the same number of turns and opposite winding directions; for instance, coil parts 312a and 313a, 312b and 313b, and 312c and 313c are all provided 180° degrees from each other across the plane of the antenna, thereby meeting the claim limitation as currently presented.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Long (US 20150235810 A1) teaches instant invention coil arrangements and match circuitry.
Todorow (US 20110094994 A1) teaches motivation for winding RF coils in opposite directions.
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 TODD M SEOANE whose telephone number is (703)756-4612. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/TODD M SEOANE/Examiner, Art Unit 1718 /GORDON BALDWIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1718
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