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
This communication is a Final office action on merit. Claims 1-20, after amendment, are presently pending and have been considered below.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 2/29/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or
nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-5, 9, 11-14, 18, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2019/0064651 A1, Shishido et al. (hereinafter Shishido) in view of US 2013/0094716 A1, Carpio et al. (hereinafter Carpio) and further in view of US 2009/0194835 Al, Park (hereinafter Park).
As to claim 1, Shishido discloses a computerized system of examination of a semiconductor specimen, the semiconductor specimen comprising
at least a surface layer and a under layer (pars 0016-0020, 0044, an upper and a lower layer), the system comprising a processing circuitry configured to:
obtain a secondary electron (SE) image and a backscattered electron (BSE) image of the specimen acquired by an electron beam tool (par 0040, a secondary electrons and backscattered electron being detected/observed from SEM image), wherein the BSE image possesses one or more image artifacts caused by one or more structural features on the surface layer (pars 0011-0012, 0039-0040. Defect being detected in SE and/or BSE images);
Shishido does not expressly discloses process the SE image to generate a feature mask comprising a set of segments representative of the one or more structural features; and generate a corrected BSE image based on the BSE image and the feature mask, wherein the corrected BSE image possesses suppressed image artifacts with respect to the one or more image artifacts in the BSE image.
Carpio, in the same or similar field of endeavor, further teaches process the SE image to generate a feature mask comprising a set of segments representative of the one or more structural features (Fig 6, analyze and define first and second mask; pars 0009, 0012, 0015-0016, 0044-0047); and
generate a corrected BSE image based on the BSE image and the feature mask, wherein the corrected BSE image possesses suppressed image artifacts with respect to the one or more image artifacts in the BSE image (Figs 6, 12C; pars 0008, 0012, 0015, 0033-0037).
Shishido and Carpio do not expressly teach the one or more image artifacts being caused by inter-layer crosstalk in which one or more structural features on the surface layer are visible in the BSE image.
Park, in the same or similar field of endeavor, additionally teaches reducing interlayer and pixels crosstalk in semiconductor substrate (pars 0006-0008, 0010-0011, 0060, 0063-0066).
Therefore, consider generate Shishido, Carpio, and Park’s teachings as a whole, it would have been obvious to one of skill in the art before the filing date of invention to incorporate Carpio and Park’s teachings in Shishido’s system to correct artifacts including ones caused by interlayer crosstalk in SE/BSE images to improve quality of mask in semiconductor manufacturing processes.
As to claim 2, Shishido as modified discloses the computerized system according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to generate the corrected BSE image by applying a correction factor to the feature mask to obtain a corrected feature mask (Carpio: pars 0012, 0033-0037), and correcting the BSE image using the corrected feature mask (Carpio: pars 0009, 0012, 0015-0017, 0030-0031, two dimensional images being corrected based on corrected mask).
As to claim 3, Shishido as modified discloses the computerized system according to claim 2, wherein the correction factor is used for minimizing effects of the one or more image artifacts in the BSE image, taking into consideration gray level variations between the SE image and the BSE image (Carpio: pars 0014-0016, gray scale value/range).
As to claim 4, Shishido as modified discloses the computerized system according to claim 1, wherein the SE image is a topographic image where contours of the structural features on the surface layer are enhanced (Carpio: Figs 3-4, 7-8; par 0045), and wherein the feature mask is generated by performing image segmentation on the SE image so as to obtain the set of segments as geometrical representation of the structural features (Shishido: pars 0040, Carpio: Figs 4-5, 7-8; pars 0023-0027, 0041, 0045-0046).
As to claim 5, Shishido as modified discloses the computerized system according to claim 4, wherein the image segmentation is performed based on one of the following: edge detection (Carpio: par 0045, boundary detection), machine learning, a segmentation threshold for the SE image (Carpio: par 0019), or design data of the specimen (Carpio: par 0054).
As to claim 9, Shishido as modified discloses the computerized system according to claim 1, wherein the surface layer comprises multiple types of structural features (Carpio: pars 0033, 0038, 0047, different features including materials, pore space, phase, modality, etc.), and wherein the processing circuitry is configured to process the SE image to generate multiple feature masks corresponding to the multiple types of structural features (Carpio: pars 0015, 0030-0031, 0051, 0053), and generate the corrected BSE image by applying respective correction factors to the multiple feature masks to obtain multiple corrected feature masks (Carpio: Figs 11-12; pars 0012, 0033-0035, 0037, 0058-0059), and correcting the BSE image using the multiple corrected feature masks (Carpio: Figs 11-12; pars 0058-0059).
As to claim 11, it is a method claim necessitated claim 1. Rejection of claim 1 is therefore incorporated herein.
As to claims 12-14, they are rejected with the same reason as set forth in claims 2-4, respectively.
As to claim 18, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 9.
As to claim 20, it recites a non-transitory CRM with instructions executed to perform functions and features of claim 1. Rejection of claim 1 is therefore incorporated herein.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-8, 10, 15-17, and 19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Reasons for Allowance
Prior art of record (Shishido, Walls, and Park) neither discloses alone or teaches in combination functions and features as recited in claims 6, 8, and 10, respectively. Claims 15 recites similar limitations as claim 6, claim 17 recites similar limitations as claim 8, and claim 19 recites similar limitations as claim 10. Claim 7 depends from claim 6, and claim 16 depends from claim 15.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but moot in light of new ground of rejection.
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.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner has cited particular column, line number, paragraphs and/or figure(s) in the reference(s) as applied to the claims for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the reference(s) in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Qun Shen whose telephone number is (571) 270-7927. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Friday from 9:00-5:00. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's Supervisor, Amandeep Saini can be reached on (571) 272-3382. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/QUN SHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662