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 without traverse of claims 1-15 in the reply filed on 06/19/2026 is acknowledged.
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, 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun et al. (hereinafter Sun, US 2021/0296335) in view of Wang et al. (hereinafter Wang, US 2022/0270972).
In regards to independent claim 1, Sun teaches a three-dimensional memory device, comprising:
an alternating stack of insulating layers and electrically conductive layers, wherein the alternating stack comprises multiple staircase structures that are arranged along a first horizontal direction (Sun, [0042], Fig. 4);
memory openings vertically extending through the alternating stack (Sun, [0038]);
memory opening fill structures located in the memory openings, wherein each of the memory opening fill structures comprises a respective vertical stack of memory elements and a vertical semiconductor channel (Sun, [0038]); and
wherein:
a first subset of the memory opening fill structures is located in a first memory array region (Sun, 206-1, [0033], Fig. 2);
a second subset of the memory opening fill structures is located in a second memory array region that is laterally offset from the first memory array region along a first horizontal direction (Sun, 206-2, [0033], Fig. 2);
the multiple staircase structures are located in a contact region which is located between the first memory array region and the second memory array region (Sun, 406-1, 408-1/2, etc., [0044], Fig. 4);
a predominant subset of the electrically conductive layers extends continuously between the first memory array region and the second memory array region within a connection region that is located between the first memory array region and the second memory array region and laterally offset from the contact region along a second horizontal direction (Sun, 404, [0044], Fig. 4);
a portion of the alternating stack located in the connection region comprises connection-region taircase structures (Sun, 418-1, 418-2, [0052], Fig. 4); and
each horizontally-extending surface segment within the multiple staircase structures in the contact region is vertically offset downward from a respective most proximal horizontally-extending surface segment in the connection-region staircase structures at least by a sum of a thickness of an insulating layer in the alternating stack and a thickness of an electrically conductive layer within the alternating stack (Sun, Fig. 4).
Sun fails to explicitly teach at least one retro-stepped dielectric material portion contacting the multiple staircase structures. Wang teaches at least one retro-stepped dielectric material portion contacting the multiple staircase structures (Wang, [0050-0063], Fig. 1A-1D).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Sun and Wang before him before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the three-dimensional memory device taught by Sun to include the retro-stepped dielectric of Wang in order to obtain a three-dimensional memory device with retro stepped dielectric. One would have been motivated to make such a combination because it would electrical isolate the step structures from each other.
In regards to dependent claim 2, Sun teaches wherein:
each staircase structure within the multiple staircase structures comprises a respective set of (K+1) horizontally-extending surface segments that are adjoined to each other by a respective set of K vertically-extending surface segments; and K is an integer greater than 2 (Sun, Fig. 4, 414-1/2).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-15 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM C TRAPANESE whose telephone number is (571)270-3304. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7am-12pm & 8pm-10pm EST.
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/WILLIAM C TRAPANESE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2812
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