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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of species I, Fig. 3 in the reply filed on 1/6/26 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that claims corresponding to Species I and II are related to significantly overlapping and similar subject matter and as a result, separate searches would likely identify the same references, and that claims corresponding to Species I and III are related to significantly overlapping and similar subject matter and as a result, separate searches would likely identify the same references, and that claims corresponding to Species II and III are related to significantly overlapping and similar subject matter and as a result, separate searches would likely identify the same references. Therefore, the claims and figures should be examined together. This is not found persuasive because, as discussed in the previous requirement, the species are independent or distinct because species are not connected in at least one of design, operation, or effect as can be clearly seen in the operation/processing step and arrangement differences as well as resultant different process effects as shown in figs. 4, 6, 8.
In addition, these species are not obvious variants of each other based on the current record. There is a serious search and/or examination burden for the patentably distinct species as set forth above because at least the following reason(s) apply: A different field of search will be involved, such as searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search queries, a different field of search is shown, even though the two are classified together, such as different search fields to account for each of the differences among the species as discussed The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL. Claims 8-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 1/6/26.
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 7 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 7 recites the limitation, to repeat (b), (c), and (d) iteratively before performing (e). However, it is unclear what exactly b, c, d and e are referring to, since there is no clear previously indication of either their provenance or their associations. It is not clear how a controller of a substrate processing system can perform or repeat simple letters of the alphabet. Even if these letters are to be taken to be in reference to previous elements or actions, the current claim set does not clearly identify which actions or processes are associated with those letters, thus there would also be insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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.
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diep (US 20120111925) in view of Rui (US 20180026054).
Regarding claim 1. Diep teaches in the drawings a substrate processing system (system 10 operating/processing a substrate [15 18]), comprising: a processing chamber (chamber 30 [27]) enclosing a processing volume (fig. 4, 30 enclosing a space); a substrate support (support 66 [36] holding wafers) disposed within the processing volume (fig. 4) configured to support a substrate during hybrid bonding substrate processing (66 holds a wafer during all processing in the plasma/bonding system chamber, fig. 4); a gas delivery system (gas input/piping 60, fig. 4 [36 37]) fluidly coupled to the processing chamber (60 directly flows into 30, fig 4) but does not teach its comprising at least one radical generator; however, Rui teaches in fig. 1 a gas delivery system (upper right part of fig. 1, including gas source 120, RPS 124 [28 31] and connecting pipes) fluidly coupled to the processing chamber (they flow into process chamber 142 fig. 1) comprising at least one radical generator (said RPS 124 [31]). It would be obvious to those skilled in the art at the time of invention to modify Diep to allow cleaning of the chamber and reduce or remove contamination [31]. Diep further teaches an exhaust (vac pump 64 [36 37]) fluidly coupled to the processing volume (fig. 4, 64 pumps gas directly out of inside of 30); and a controller (computer [38-43]) configured to cause the substrate processing system (operations of the system are performed by the computer with software [38-43]) to:
form a first layer on a first substrate (eg steps 214 218 219 224, fig. 3 which apply at least a layer of material such as resist, gold, solder and/or capping layer; alternatively, all those applied layers is also a combined thicker/stacked layer); dissociate a gas in the at least one radical generator to form a plasma (as discussed, the cleaning gases are excited/ionized by the RPS as part of a cleaning plasma operation to clean chamber components; alternately the cleaning plasma is also for removing oxide/step 220 [17], or other cleaning steps [30 32 35]); flow the plasma into the processing volume of the processing chamber for a period of time (the time the cleaning gases are removing/cleaning the debris/oxides/layers after being excited and flowed into the chamber); exhaust the plasma, by products, and effluent gas from the processing volume after the period of time (all the removed/plasma etched debris must be removed by gas exhaust to prevent them from contaminating the chamber); and adhere a second layer disposed on a second substrate onto the first layer using a hybrid bonding technique (such as bonding two substrates with different/hybrid materials, eg a second substrate with at least a layer/thickness of MEMS device or IR detector materials on it bonded to the first substrate w/ metal stack/layers [18]; since fig 3 can be applied to either/both wafers including adding the solder layer serving as the binder [19 24], other alternates/interpretations include the second wafer/layer may be the metal stack wafer and the first one with MEMS and having solder layer as part of the choices [24], or either of the mems/metal layer wafers can be the first/second and the first/second layers are two separate solder layers applied on both wafers [24] that bind to each other).
Regarding claim 2. Diep in view of Rui teaches the substrate processing system of claim 1, wherein the first layer comprises dielectric portions and metallic portions (as disc above, such as the dielectric metal oxide, gold capping portions and metallic solder), and the metallic portions comprising copper (such as copper solder [21]) but does not teach the dielectric portions comprising silicon dioxide, however Rui teaches in [51 73 76] a stack/layer including silicon oxide and it would be obvious to those skilled in the art at the time of the invention to modify Diep to be able to manufacture commercially in demand products such as display devices such as OLEDs and TFTs [48-51 71-76] which would increase the commercial usefulness of the apparatus.
Regarding claim 3. Diep in view of Rui teaches the substrate processing system of claim 1, wherein the gas comprises H2, N2, Ar, He, NH3, NF3, clean dry air (CDA), or a combination thereof (the plasma cleaning gases comprise almost all of them, Diep [23], Rui [31]).
Regarding claim 4. Diep in view of Rui teaches the substrate processing system of claim 1, wherein the at least one radical generator comprises a first radical generator disposed on a top of the processing chamber or a second radical generator disposed on a sidewall of the processing chamber (the RPS is on top of the chamber via gas piping and a central gas connector, Rui fig. 1, same as applicant’s 106a fig. 1).
Regarding claim 5. Diep in view of Rui teaches the substrate processing system of claim 1, wherein the processing chamber is configured for front-side and back-side processing (this does not add further structure or structurally limit the apparatus but is an intended usage, MPEP 2114; this is also related to the usage of the wafer and its details, MPEP 2115, which, either side can be both front or backside, depending on how it’s used later as a product; further the wafer can also be flipped manually upon placement into the apparatus so that both sides are capable of being processed).
Regarding claim 6. Diep in view of Rui, teaches the substrate processing system of claim 5, but does not teach wherein the substrate support comprises lift pins configured to support a substrate such that the plasma flows on opposing sides of the substrate. However, Rui teaches in fig. 1 the substrate support (130 [26]) comprises lift pins (138 [26]) configured to support a substrate (fig. 1 [26]) such that the plasma flows on opposing sides of the substrate (since the wafer is spaced from the support, plasma is capable of flowing on the bottom from above/top of the wafer). It would be obvious to those skilled in the art at the time of invention to modify Diep to facilitate wafer transfer [44].
Regarding claim 7. Diep in view of Rui, teaches the substrate processing system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to cause the substrate processing system to repeat (b), (c), and (d) iteratively before performing (e) (there is no label for a-e in the claim language; however, since the claim is labeled original, it is assumed to be based on the claim version of 6/7/23 to reference to the plasma cleaning steps of forming the cleaning plasma, cleaning with the plasma/plasma flow and cleaning time and exhausting after cleaning, Diep runs the plasma cleaning phases, which as disc above in claim 1, includes the said three steps, at least several times in each run in fig. 3, i.e. steps 220, 226, 228 [30 32 35] before bonding; furthermore, if we consider multiple previous runs of fig. 3, such as for batch processing, before a particular bonding step in a later run, each of the same cleaning steps is repeated in each of the previous runs before the particular bonding step of a later run).
Conclusion
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/YUECHUAN YU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1718