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 .
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 Lim et al. (US 20130302968) in view of
Regarding claim 1, a method for fabricating a semiconductor device, comprising:
providing a substrate 31 comprising a first peripheral region and a second peripheral region (Fig. 5);
forming a mandrel layer 36 & 37 on the first peripheral region;
conformally forming a layer of spacer material 39 on the substrate and covering the mandrel layer 36 & 37 (Fig. 5);
forming an under layer 40 on the substrate 31 and covering the mandrel layer 36 & 37 and the plurality of sacrificial spacers 39;
recessing the under layer to expose the mandrel layer 36 & 37 and the plurality of sacrificial spacers 39 (Fig. 7);
selectively removing the plurality of sacrificial spacers to expose the first peripheral region (Fig. 8);
forming a plurality of gate recesses in the first peripheral region 111 (Fig. 12); and
forming a plurality of recessed gates 131-133on the plurality of gate recesses (Fig. 13).
Lin fails to teach that performing a spacer etching process to turn the layer of spacer material into a plurality of sacrificial spacers on sides of the mandrel layer.
However, Kim suggests that performing a spacer 220 etching process to turn the layer of spacer material into a plurality of sacrificial spacers on sides of the mandrel layer 210 (Fig. 2F).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of applicant(s) claimed invention was made to provide Lin with performing a spacer etching process to turn the layer of spacer material into a plurality of sacrificial spacers on sides of the mandrel layer as taught by Kim in order to reduce size of a device (recess gates, para. 0005 & 0056) and also, the claim would have been obvious because a particular know technique was recognized as part of the ordinary capabilities of one skilled in the art.
Reclaim 2, Lin & Kim disclose that the layer of spacer material 39 is formed by atomic layer deposition (para. 0022, ALD).
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
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/SU C KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2899