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 .
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.
Claims 1-20 are 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 1 in describing “a photosensitive composition for measurement” should recite - - a second acid decomposable resins having a groups that is decomposed by action of an acid to generate a polar groups and a second photoacid generator” and describe - -form a second resist on a second substrate- - , - - removing the second resist form the second substrate- -, using - - the treatment liquid- -, -- measuring a number of defects on the second substrate - - as the materials of the second resist need to be properly introduced (antecedent basis established) and referred to using that antecedent basis.
Claim 1 recites that the treatment liquid includes an aromatic hydrocarbon, an organic solvent, and a metal X, the organic solvent does not include the aromatic hydrocarbon and includes an aliphatic hydrocarbon”. The specification describes using a treatment liquid including an aliphatic hydrocarbon and having an aromatic hydrocarbon/metal impurity within a predetermined range (prepub at [0059,0138,0172]). The examples include undecane and butyl acetate as co-solvents and it may be that the aromatic hydrocarbon and/or metal are impurities in the butyl acetate and not the undecane. The claims should clearly describe the aromatic hydrocarbon and metal as present in trace (or specific) amounts in the treatment liquid using language derived from the specification and as present in a co-solvent which is not an aliphatic hydrocarbon. The claims cannot consist of an aromatic hydrocarbon, a metal X, and a pure aliphatic hydrocarbon (as the organic solvent) and also require that the organic solvent (pure aliphatic hydrocarbon) does not include the aromatic hydrocarbon.
Also it is not clear what type of defects are considered. Are these development defects, pattern collapse, line roughness, lines width roughness, bridge suppression, etc ….or just referring to defects due to the presence of metal impurities ?
Claim 13 is not further limiting as it recites no steps beyond those already recited in claim 1, upon which it depends
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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.
Claims 1,3-6 and 10-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being fully anticipated by Tsubaki et al. 20180101100.
Tsubaki et al. 20180101100 teaches developer/rinse combination S-5 which is an 80/20 mixture of butyl acetate and decane. Composition S-6 is 90/10 mixture of isoamyl acetate/undecane. Composition S-7 is 20/80 butyl acetate/decane and S-8 is 20/80 isoamyl acetate/undecane (table 5/page 59). S-5 is used as a developed in examples 3 (Resist 3, A),7 (resist 7, A),13 (resist 6, A), 21 (resist 3, A), and 25 (resist 7, A). S-6 is used as a developer in examples 4 (resist 4, C), 8 (resist 1, A), 22 (resist 4, C) and 26 (resist 1, A). S-7 is used as a rinse solution in examples 4 (resist 4, C),9 (resist 2, C),13 (resist 6, C), 22 (resist 4, C) and 27 (resist 2, C). S-8 is used as a rinse agents in examples 5 (resist 5,C) 10 (resist 3, C), 23 (resist 5, C), 28 (resist 3, C) (table 6 and 7, page 60) and resist defects are reports in the ranges (A=0, B-1-4, C= 5-9, D=10-19 and E=20 or more from 1000 images [0560-0567]. Examples use an EUV exposure. [0539-0568] and example 19-29 use electron beam exposure.. Resists compositions includes a resin, a photoacid generator, a basic compound and coating solvents. (tables 4, [0538]). The resins used are
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, which all include acid labile groups (pages 56-57). The use of filtration to remove impurities such as metals. Metal content being preferably being 10 ppt or lower [0492-0495]. The impurities were removed in the developers and rinsing liquids by distilling and/or filtering the raw materials [0548]. A resist material in which a main chain is cut, the molecular weight decreases, and the solubility changes when irradiated with a g-line, a h-line, an i-line, KrF, ArF, EB, EUV, or the like [0179-0181,0204]. In a case where the ester solvent and the hydrocarbon solvent are used in combination, it is preferable that butyl acetate or isoamyl acetate is used as the ester solvent. In addition, it is preferable that a saturated hydrocarbon solvent (for example, decane, dodecane, undecane, or hexadecane) is used as the hydrocarbon solvent from the viewpoint of further exhibiting the effects [0160]. In a case where the rinsing liquid includes at least one selected from the group consisting of the ester solvent and the ketone solvent, it is preferable that the rinsing liquid includes at least one solvent selected from the group consisting of butyl acetate, isopentyl acetate (isoamyl acetate), n-pentyl acetate, ethyl 3-ethoxypropionate (EEP), and 2-heptanone as a major component, and it is more preferable that the rinsing liquid includes at least one solvent selected from the group consisting of butyl acetate and 2-heptanone as a major component [0165]
With respect to claims 1,3-6 and 10-17, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator. The examiner holds that the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified include aromatic hydrocarbon and metals including Ni, Al, and/or Fe as impurities, but these are within the claims limits based upon the disclosure of filtration at [0548] and the direction to reducing the metal content using filtration to most preferably 10 ppt or less at [0492-0493]. The examples using identified as using these developer and/or rinsing agents are evaluated on the basis of observed defects after exposure using EUV or electron beam.
The examiner notes that the assignee of the instant application is the same as that of Tsubaki et al. 20180101100 as so if the assertions of the examiner with respect to the amounts of impurities in the developer and/or rinse agents are factually incorrect, they are in a position to refute these with declaration evidence.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsubaki et al. 20180101100.
Tsubaki et al. 20180101100 does exemplify a developer or rinse composition including both butyl acetate and undecane, expressly teach the amounts of impurities in the identified developers and/or rinse agents, or teach optimizing the composition based upon the results of the defect evaluation.
With respect to claims 1,3-8 and 10-19, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator and holds that it would have been obvious to modify each of the examples using S-5 by replacing at least 1% of the decane with an equal amounts of undecane based upon their equivalence as hydrocarbon solvents to be used with ester solvents at [0160] and to filter these to reduce the metal content to be 10 ppt or less based upon the disclosure of filtration at [0548] and the direction to reducing the metal content using filtration to most preferably 10 ppt or less at [0492-0493] and evaluate these for defects as in the examples with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation. Further, it would have been obvious to modify the resulting processes by using KrF, or ArF laser exposure in place of the EUV or electron beams exposure with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation.
With respect to claims 1 and 3-20, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator and holds that it would have been obvious to modify each of the examples using S-6 by replacing the isoamyl acetate with an equal amounts of butyl acetate based upon their equivalence as ester solvents to be used with hydrocarbon solvents at [0160] and to filter these to reduce the metal content to be 10 ppt or less based upon the disclosure of filtration at [0548] and the direction to reducing the metal content using filtration to most preferably 10 ppt or less at [0492-0493] and evaluate these for defects as in the examples with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation. Further, it would have been obvious to modify the resulting processes by using KrF, or ArF laser exposure in place of the EUV or electron beams exposure with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation.
With respect to claims 1,3-8 and 10-19, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator and holds that it would have been obvious to modify each of the examples using S-5 by replacing at least 1% of the decane with an equal amounts of undecane based upon their equivalence as hydrocarbon solvents to be used with ester solvents at [0160] and to filter these to reduce the metal content to be 10 ppt or less based upon the disclosure of filtration at [0548] and the direction to reducing the metal content using filtration to most preferably 10 ppt or less at [0492-0493] and evaluate these for defects as in the examples with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation. Further, it would have been obvious to modify the resulting processes by using KrF, or ArF laser exposure in place of the EUV or electron beams exposure with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation.
With respect to claims 1-6 and 10-17, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator The examiner holds that the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified include aromatic hydrocarbon and metals including Ni, Al, and/or Fe as impurities, but these are within the claims limits based upon the disclosure of filtration at [0548] and the direction to reducing the metal content using filtration to most preferably 10 ppt or less at [0492-0493]. The examples using identified as using these developer and/or rinsing agents are evaluated on the basis of observed defects after exposure using EUV or electron beam.
The examiner holds that it would have been obvious to use the defect data to modify the compositions where the defects were rated as a “C” and then repeat the process in an attempt to improve the defects to a level of “A” or “B” for the process using the same exposure, development and rinsing with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation. Further, it would have been obvious to modify the resulting processes by using KrF, or ArF laser exposure in place of the EUV or electron beams exposure with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation.
Claims 1,3-6 and 10-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being fully anticipated by Kamimura et al. 20190258168.
Kamimura et al. 20190258168 teaches S-7, which is a mixture of 90/10 butyl acetate and decane. S-8 is a mixture of 70/30 butyl acetate and nonane (table 8, page 88), S-25 is a 80/20 mixture of propylene glycol/nonane (page 89. The purification of the solvents is disclosed in tables 8 on pages 91-97. S-7 has been purified 3 times and has a Fe contents of 0.5 ppt, a Ni content of 5 ppt , a diisononyl phthalate content of 0.023 ppm and a moisture content of 21 ppm (0.023 ppm/5.5 ppt yields 4182) . S-8 was purified 3 times and has a Fe contents of 5 ppt, a Ni content of 4 ppt , a dibutyl phthalate content of 0.5 ppm and a moisture content of 32 ppm (0.5 ppm/9 ppt yields 55,5556). S-25 was purified 3 times and has a Fe contents of 315 ppt, a Ni content of 131 ppt , a diisopropyl phthalate content of 25 ppm and a moisture content of 188 ppm (25 ppm/446 ppt yields 56,054). S-7 is used as a developer in example 1-7 with resist 7 (organic “C”, metal “B”) S-8 is used as a developer in example 1-8 with resist composition 8 and had a “B” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development and (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed. S-8 is used as a rinse agent in example 1-16 with resist composition 3 and had a “B” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development and (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed. S-25 is used as a rinse agent in example I-29 with resist composition 5, and had a “A” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development a “C” rating for (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed. S-25 is used as a rinse agent in example I-35 with resist composition 5, and had a “A” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development a “C” rating for (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed. S-25 is used as a developer agent in example I-41 with resist composition 25, and had a “B” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development a “C” rating for (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed. S-25 is used as a developer agent in example I-42 with resist composition 25, and had a “B” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development a “C” rating for (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed. S-25 is used as a developer agent in example I-44 with resist composition 25, and had a “B” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development a “C” rating for (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed.
S-25 is used as a rinse agent in example 2--14 with resist composition 18, and had a “A” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development a “C” rating for (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed.The resists includes a resin, photoacid generator, basic compound, solvent and hydrophobic resin (table 5). Resist compositions 3 used resin A-3 and resist composition 8 used resin A-8.
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Resin A-25 is used in resist composition 43, which is used in examples I-54 to I-56, which uses SA-13 as the developer and S-41, S-42 or S-43 as the rinse solution and had a “B” rating on the evaluation of (organic residue) defects after development a “B” rating for (metal particle) defects and bridge defects were not observed. The exposure processes used in the examples include EUV and KrF [0813,0822,0896,0919,0928]. The actinic rays or radiation is not particularly limited, but is, for example, KrF excimer laser, ArF excimer laser, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) rays, electron beams (EB), or the like [0408]. Among the aliphatic hydrocarbon-based solvents, decane, undecane, or dodecane is particularly preferable, and undecane is the most preferable [0181].The content of each of the metal component containing an element selected from the group consisting of Fe, Cr, Ni, and Pb in the treatment liquid of the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited, but usually, it is preferably 1,000 ppt by mass or less, and in view that the effect of the present invention is more excellent, the content is preferably 0.001 to 50 ppt by mass with respect to the total mass of the treatment liquid [0268]. Here, the above-mentioned “major component” indicates that the content of the component is 50% to 100% by mass, preferably 70% to 100% by mass, more preferably 80% to 100% by mass, still more preferably 90% to 100% by mass, and particularly preferably 95% to 100% by mass, with respect to the total mass of the organic solvent. In addition, in a case where the minor component is contained, the content of the minor component is preferably 0.1% to 20% by mass, more preferably 0.5% to 10% by mass, and still more preferably 1% to 5% by mass, with respect to the total mass (100% by mass) of the major component [0191-0192].
With respect to claims 1,3-6 and 10-17, the examiner holds that the multiple examples using S-8 or S-25 in processing different resists meet the limitations of the claims as evidenced by the impurity data.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kamimura et al. 20190258168
Tsubaki et al. 20180101100 does exemplify a developer or rinse composition including both butyl acetate and undecane, or teach optimizing the composition based upon the results of the defect evaluation.
With respect to claims 1-6 and 10-17, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator and holds that it would have been obvious to modify each of the examples using S-8 or S-25 by using the using the defect data to modify the compositions where the defects were rated as a “C” and then repeat the process in an attempt to improve the defects to a level of “A” or “B” for the process using the same exposure, development and rinsing with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation. Further, it would have been obvious to modify the resulting processes by using KrF, or electron beam exposure in place of the EUV or electron beams exposure with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation.
With respect to claims 1,3-8 and 10-19, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator and holds that it would have been obvious to modify each of the examples using S-8 by replacing at least 1% of the nonane with an equal amounts of undecane based upon their equivalence as hydrocarbon solvents [0181] and to filter the resulting to reduce the metal content to be 0.1 ppt or less based upon the disclosure of reducing the metal content using filtration to as low as 0.001 ppt at [0268] and evaluate these for defects as in the examples with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation. Further, it would have been obvious to modify the resulting processes by using electron beam or ArF laser exposure in place of the EUV or KrF exposure with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation.
With respect to claims 1 and 3-20, the examiner notes that the resists using the developer and/or rinsing compositions identified each include a resin having an acid labile group and a photoacid generator and holds that it would have been obvious to modify each of the examples using S-8 by increasing the amount of butyl acetate to 90 wt% and replacing the nonane with 10 wt% of undecane based upon their equivalence as hydrocarbon solvents [0181] and the amounts disclosed at [0191-0192] and to filter the resulting to reduce the metal content to be 0.1 ppt or less based upon the disclosure of reducing the metal content using filtration to as low as 0.001 ppt at [0268] and evaluate these for defects as in the examples with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation. Further, it would have been obvious to modify the resulting processes by using electron beam or ArF laser exposure in place of the EUV or KrF exposure with a reasonable expectation of forming a useful resist pattern for evaluation.
Further with respect to claim 2, it would have been obvious to repeat the processes of the examples with exposures and development (and rinse) compositions rendered obvious above with different resist compositions in attempts to optimize the composition for reduced defects with a reasonable expectation of forming useful resist patterns for evaluation
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure..
Shimizu et al. 20240264532 claims treatment solutions similar to those used in the processes of the instant claims.
Yamamoto et al. 20240231235 has the same inventors, but evaluates the results on the basis of dissolution rate of the resist, rather than number of defects.
Shimizu et al. 20240219359 claims inspection of the treatment liquid and requires a carboxylic acid.
Takahashi et al 20240280362 teaches developer and rinse compositions bounded by the claims and their use, but does not use them with different resist compositions.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Martin J Angebranndt whose telephone number is (571)272-1378. The examiner can normally be reached 7-3:30 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ching-Yu (Coris) Fung can be reached at 571-270-5713. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MARTIN J. ANGEBRANNDT
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1737
/MARTIN J ANGEBRANNDT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1737 August 20, 2026
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