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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of the method claims in the reply filed on 1/7/26 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Fairbairn et al. (TW 202329762A).
With respect to claim 1, Fairbairn describes a method comprising providing a plurality of bias supplies 402 comprising one or more RF sources coupled to a bottom electrode and run at different voltages or a combination of both different duty cycles and different voltages to apply bias waveform to the etching zones (block 506) or claimed providing a tailored hybrid waveform as a bias voltage to a bottom electrode of a plasma processing chamber; monitoring one or more characteristics by using sensors or detectors in the plasma chamber such as measuring ion density and sheath capacity at different locations within the chamber in which the ion density and sheath capacity of the plasma used as feedback to the bias 402 to adjust the bias waveform from the bias provider 402 (pages 5, 6 of the translation) or claimed measuring a control variable of a plasma with a sensor of the plasma processing chamber and adjusting the tailored hybrid waveform based on the control variable.
With respect to claim 2, the sensors include V-I sensors (page 8 of the translation).
With respect to claim 3, the phase and gain sensors, voltage sensors are capacitive sensors (page 8 of the translation). Please also see Caldara et al. (US 2021/0228911A1), para 38, for disclosing the phase sensors are capacitive sensors and Valenti et al. (US 2017/0336447A1), claim 5, for disclosing voltage sensor comprises capacitive probe.
With respect to claim 5, the RF bias power supply operates at frequency between 400kHz-2MHz (page 3 of the translation).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fairbairn as applied to claim 1 above.
With respect to claim 11, even though Fairbairn is silent about adjusting the tailored hybrid waveform comprises adjusting a frequency of the tailored hybrid waveform; however, he teaches to adjust the bias waveform (page 6) and adjusting the power applied by the bias supply to control the plasma sheath that is proximate to the bias electrodes (para 8). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one skilled in the art to adjust a frequency of the bias waveform in order to control the power applied by the bias supply/electrode.
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fairbairn as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Shinagawa (US 2020/0051787).
With respect to claim 4, Fairbairn doesn’t teach using an optical emission spectroscopy sensor. However, it is a well known sensor to measure plasma characteristics including peak-to-peak voltage of the plasma, ion density within the plasma, neutral density within the plasma, radical density within the plasma, or density of constituents of the plasma (para 12, 15). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use an optical emission spectroscopy sensor because it’ll enable one skilled in the art to measure or detect charactieristics of the plasma such as ion density during the plasma process with expected results.
Claim(s) 6-10, 21, 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fairbairn as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kim et al. (US 2024/0128055).
With respect to claim 21, Fairbairn describes a method comprising providing a substrate in a plasma chamber; providing plurality of bias supplies 402 comprising one or more RF sources coupled to a bottom electrode and run at different voltages or a combination of both different duty cycles and different voltages to apply bias waveform to the etching zones (block 506) or claimed providing a tailored hybrid waveform as a bias voltage to a bottom electrode of a plasma processing chamber; monitoring one or more characteristics by using sensors or detectors in the plasma chamber such as measuring ion density and sheath capacity or claimed a control variable at different locations within the chamber in which the ion density and sheath capacity of the plasma used as feedback to the bias 402 to adjust the bias waveform from the bias provider 402 (pages 5, 6 of the translation) or claimed reading sensor data and calculating a control variable of a plasma with a sensor of the plasma processing chamber and adjusting the tailored hybrid waveform based on the control variable
Fairbairn further teaches monitoring by using stored data (eg. sheath capacitance and/or other characteristics about the plasma) or claimed a first desired value, the adjustments can be made by using real-time feedback using the calculated sheath capacitance, voltage and/or current measurements or claimed control variable by adjusting amplitude, a bias supply voltage and/or duty cycle of the bias supply (pages 5, 6). Even though he is not specific about the adjustment is based on whether the control variable is greater than a first desired value. It would have been obvious and within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to recognize such differences from the comparison between the stored data and the calculated sheath capacitance, voltage, current measurements and/or other characteristics of the plasma or whether a control variable is greater than a stored value to provide the adjustment to the amplitude, bias supply voltage and/or duty cycle to provide an uniform plasma sheath during the etching process.
With respect to claims 6 and 21, unlike claimed invention, Fairbairn doesn’t describe generating a plasma by supplying the tailored hybrid bias waveform to the plasma chamber and the bias supplies 402 that provide bias voltage or tailored hybrid waveform to the bottom electrode comprises a pulsed DC square wave and a regular or conditioned RF sinusoidal wave. Kim teaches a known etching process using an apparatus having a RF sinusoidal wave and pulsed DC square which are applied to a bottom electrode to the plasma chamber to provide a plasma and to control ion energy of the plasma (para 5, 27-32). It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use such known apparatus having the bottom electrode coupled to a pulsed DC square wave and a regular or conditioned RF sinusoidal wave in light of Kim because Fairbairn teaches the use of an apparatus to control uniformity and intensity of capacitive (or inductively) coupled plasmons and “the lower electrode 275, the top electrode 285 can be implemented as anything capable of capacitively coupling energy into the plasma (top electrode 285) or capacitively generating a bias voltage on the surface of the substrate 200 (lower electrode 275)”. (page 2, 3) and Kim shows a capacitive coupled plasma chamber wherein the pulsed DC square wave and a regular or conditioned RF sinusoidal wave are used to provide a plasma and control ion energy in the chamber (para 28, 29). This would provide a plasma for the etching with expected results.
With respect to claims 7-10, with Fairbairn’s teaching of “By varying the duty cycle and/or voltage level of the eV source, plasma uniformity can be altered and can affect process uniformity of the substrate. The material of the top electrode 285 can be used in the processing of the substrate, so by controlling the bias level of the bias provider 402 in terms of amplitude, time, uniformity, or a combination of these, the uniformity and the processing of the substrate 200 can be controlled rate” and from Kim’s teaching of the RF signal and the non-sinusoidal DC bias or pulsed DC square wave may be offset from each other or claimed phase delay between the pulsed DC square wave and the RF sinusoidal wave (para 86-92), it would have been obvious for one skilled in the art to adjust an amplitude of the pulsed DC square wave, an amplitude of the RF sinusoidal wave, a phase delay between the pulsed DC square wave and the RF sinusoidal wave because Fairbairn and Kim show that these affect plasma uniformity, process uniformity, ion density of the plasma for the etching process.
With respect to claim 22, fig 8 of Fairbairn shows a slope of a sheath voltage or control variable and is affected by the voltage waveform output by the bias supply (page 7).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12-17 are allowed because the applied prior art Fairbairn, even though teaches controlling the bias and plasma sheath uniformity; however, Fairbairn doesn’t teach to calculate a control variable being an angle between the sheath voltage of the wafer and a damped voltage for ions by a plasma sheath in the plasma processing chamber in combination with calculating a control variable being a slope of a sheath voltage of a wafer and based on whether the first control variable is greater than a first desired value, adjusting an amplitude, phase delay, or duty cycle of the tailored hybrid bias waveform; and based on whether the second control variable is greater than a second desired value, adjusting a frequency of the tailored hybrid bias waveform.
Claim 23 is 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. Fairbairn described above doesn’t teach calculate a control variable being an angle between the sheath voltage of the substrate and a damped voltage for ions by a plasma sheath.
Other References
Caldara et al. (US 2021/0228911A1), para 38, is cited for disclosing the phase sensors are capacitive sensors.
Valenti et al. (US 2017/0336447A1), claim 5, is cited for disclosing voltage sensor comprises capacitive probe.
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/DUY VU N DEO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1713
1/30/2026