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 without traverse of claims 1-11 in the reply filed on 01/08/2026 is acknowledged.
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 6 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 6, depends on itself.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang et al (US2020/0027694 A1).
Wang teaches a multi-beam system configured to provide a plurality of primary particle beams
and a plurality of secondary particle beams (abstract, Fig. 2) , the multi-beam system comprising:
a spatially resolving detector (Fig. 2 (244) is spatially resolved because it includes separate
detecting elements (246, 248, 250));
a deflection system configured to deflect the primary and secondary particle beams to
collectively scan of a portion of a structured surface of a wafer (Fig. 2 (220), paras 40-41 describe such deflection); and
a control device configured to drive the spatially resolving detector and the deflection system
(Fig. 5a-5b, paras 69-70, 85),
wherein the control device and the spatially resolving detector are configured to capture:
a time-averaged inspection image of a raster arrangement of the plurality of secondary particle beams with a spatial resolution of two nanometers or less; and/or
a digital image of the portion of the structured surface with a spatial resolution of two nanometers or less. (Para 4, less than a nanometer.)
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.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. in view of reference JP2016-004785 (‘785 hereinafter).
Wang fails to specifically state the spatially resolving detector is configured to
simultaneously capture: i) the time-averaged inspection image of the raster arrangement of the secondary particle beams; and ii) the digital image of the portion of the structured surface with a spatial resolution with a pixel dimension of two nanometers or less.
However, ‘785 teaches a time-averaged inspection image device wherein these multiple images are captured and processed simultaneously which is a throughput efficient way to access each different sampling point. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to modify Wang’s device with the ‘785 teaching to increase efficiency, and to mitigate noise in scanning microscope images disclosed in D2 (para. 27).
Claims 7, 8, 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al in view of JP2006-244875 (‘875).
As per claim 7, Wang et. al does not specifically teach the changing of parameters to obtain an
optimal desired effect, as currently claimed. First, it would have been a matter of engineering expedient of the skilled artisan to adjust/calibrate/change the parameters of the device to achieve the optimal desired effect. Moreover, as shown in Wang et al. wherein the beam apertures are adjusted (para.39) and ‘875 wherein the scanning parameters are adjusted such the focal points so cancel the small the axial chromatic aberration; thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to adjust the parameters of the device for maximum working efficiency of multi-beam optical system.
As per claim 8, Wang et al. does not explicitly teach the plurality of components of an illumination and detection path wherein the control device is configured to drive setting parameters of the components to reduce the effects as in claim 7. As mentioned in claim 7 above, the skilled artisan would be motivated to adjust/calibrate/modify the system parameters to achieve the desired optical efficiency. In the device ‘875, the correction ring (19-5) can be controlled to reduce the complex multi-beam effect from the feature that the scanning speed and scanning area are controlled by a beam spot processing module (506) (Figure 5). The result of the correction ring (19-5) is to maintain an electric field distribution uniform at the end of the wafer (Figure 11), thus cancelling out the influences of the minute gap. Therefore, the skilled artisan would be motivated to combine Wang et al with the teachings of ‘875 of adjusting the parameters to suppress any blurring or aberration due to complex multi-beam system.
As per claim 10, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the image data processing of ‘875 would analyze evaluate and analyze image to make the appropriate corrections to suppress/minimize any aberrations.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 6, 9, 11 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.
As claim 2, the prior art of record fails to teach n a first mode of operation, the control device is
configured to: i) capture the time-averaged inspection image of the raster arrangement; and ii) scan the primary particle beams over the portion of the structured surface of the wafer in a time T1 using the deflection system; in a second mode of operation, the control device is configured to: i) record the digital image of the portion of the structured surface of the wafter; and ii) to scan the primary particle beams over the portion of the structured surface of the wafer in a time T2 using the deflection system; and T1<T2.
As per claim 6, the prior art of record fails to teach the spatially resolving detector further comprises an electron conversion element, a first light detector and a second light detector;
the electron conversion element is configured to generate photons from electrons; the first light detector is configured to detect some of the photons to capture for a portion of the wafer surface;
the second light detector is configured to detect some of the photons to capture the time-averaged inspection image of the raster arrangement; and the first light detector is faster than the second light detector.
As per claim 9, the prior art of record fails to teach a quasi-static deflector configured to deflect the primary particle beams; a first dynamic deflector configured to scanningly deflect the primary beams; a second dynamic deflector configured to scanningly deflect the secondary particle beams;
electrostatic or magnetic lenses having a changeable focusing effect; a raster arrangement of multi-pole elements configured to influence the primary particle beams; and correction electrodes configured to set a homogeneous extraction field between the wafer surface and a counter electrode of an objective lens system of the multi-beam system.
As per claim 11, the prior art of record fails to teach a first electrical contacting of a counter electrode at least partially below an objective lens to supply a first voltage difference; a displacement stage comprising a reception area configured to receive and position the wafter under the objective lens; a second electrical contacting of the reception area to apply a second voltage difference to the wafer, wherein: the displacement stage further comprises a correction electrode in a periphery of the reception area; the correction electrode comprises an electrical contact configured to supply at least a third voltage difference to generate an extraction field that is homogenous in an edge region of the wafer.
Conclusion
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/ROBERT H KIM/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2881