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 .
Drawings
Examiner withdraws the drawing objection based upon the cancelation of the limitation in claim 1.
Declaration under 37 CFR § 1.132
The declaration under 37 CFR 1.132 filed May 12, 2026 is insufficient to overcome the rejection of claims 1, and 4-7 based upon 35 USC § 103 as set forth in the last Office action because:
Applicant has failed to show “that the particular range is critical, generally by showing that the claimed range achieves unexpected results relative to the prior art range.” In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575 (Fed. Cir. 1990). The claims were rejected over Rabkin, in view of Saito, and/or in view of Ryu. The rejection admits that Rabkin does not teach the claimed temperature range. To remedy this Examiner combined the references of Saito, Ryu, and Saito with Ryu. Applicant did not respond to the Saito reference. Therefore, on its face the declaration is insufficient overcome the rejection as it does not respond to the grounds of rejection based upon Saito.
Saito teaches a broad range for heat treatment comprising 400-750 C, ¶ 0147, and it teaches a specific range of 650-700 C, ¶ 0149. Based upon the specification the features which create Applicant’s “elevated” field-effect mobility are the material of the thin film, IGO, and the temperature of the anneal, 650-750C. As shown in the previous art rejection of claim 1, and the current art rejection of claim 1, the prior art teaches both the material of the thin film used by Applicant, and the temperature range claimed by Applicant.
In the specification at pages 15-16, Applicant states “[i]n particular, when the IGO channel layer was thermally treated in a temperature range of 650C to 750C, a crystallization proceeded to have a (222) crystal plane, so that high mobility and memory window characteristics were exhibited”. Thus, based upon Applicant’s disclosure the only thing which causes the claimed field-effect mobility is thermally treating the IGO thin film to 650-750 C. As shown above Saito teaches temperatures in the claimed range, and the claimed material. Therefore, the claimed characteristic of field-effect mobility, would have been an obvious an obvious characteristic of the prior art. MPEP 2112(I), where something old does not become patentable upon the discovery of a new property, and MPEP 2112(III), where Examiner may make a 103 rejection when the prior art is silent with respect to the obvious characteristic.
Applicant’s declaration does is not effective in removing the 35 USC § 103 rejection as Applicant’s declaration does not show the claimed temperature range is critical as it does not achieve unexpected results relative to the prior art’s range. MPEP 2144.05(III)(A). Further, any difference described by the declaration is a difference in degree rather than kind. Id, citing E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company v. Synvina C.V., 904 F.3d 996, 1006 (Fed. Cir. 2018.); MPEP 716.02 citing UCB, Inc. v. Actavis Labs, UT, Inc., 65 F.4th 679, 693, 2023 USPQ2d 448 (Fed. Cir. 2023), where “A difference of degree is not as persuasive as a difference in kind – i.e., if the range produces ‘“a new property dissimilar to the known property,’” rather than producing a predictable result but to an unexpected extent.” Here, at best Applicant’s declaration asserts a predictable result but to an unexpected extent (the increased field-effect mobility). However, when the specification’s teachings are compared against the prior art it appears that at best Applicant has discovered an new property of the claimed temperature range that was not recognized during the time of the prior arts publication. But, based upon Applicant’s disclosure this property, or characteristic, was have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as the prior art teaches the same material and temperature range as the disclosure.
For all the reasons above, Applicant’s declaration is not effective, and does not remove the 35 USC § 103 rejection.
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, and 4-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rabkin et al. (US 2016/0149004 A1) (“Rabkin”), in view of Saito et al. (US 2011/0133182 A1) (“Saito”), with support from Ryu et al. (KR 2018-0020024 A) (“Ryu”), by means of Examiner provided machine translation in the parent Application.
Regarding claim 1, Rabkin teaches at least in figures 3B, 4A, and 5A-B:
A stack of multilayers (696-698) comprising at least one transition metal (¶ 0046, where 696 and 698 can comprise Al2O3; see claim 5 where Al can be one of the transition metals); and
A plurality of channel layer (699) arranged horizontally (see at least figure 3A where there can be a plurality of devices) and formed adjacent to the multilayers (696-698) and configured to comprise an indium gallium oxide (IGO) material (¶ 0026);
an insulating layer (D0-D8) and an electrode layer (WL0-WL6), which are alternately stacked vertically (shown in figure 3B),
wherein the multilayers (696-698) consist of a tunneling oxide layer (698), a charge trap layer (697), and a blocking oxide layer (696), which are sequentially stacked (they are so stacked) and the stack of multilayers are orthogonally arranged with respect to the insulating layer and the electrode layer (this is shown in the combination of figure 3B and figure 8),
wherein each of the plurality of the channel layers has a hollow tube-shaped interior and a filling layer placed inside the hollow tube-shaped interior (the device of figure 8 can be considered a hollow tube-shaped interior filled with a filling layer 695), and
wherein the each of the plurality of channel layers (699) comprises (detailed below)
a drain region (top of 699 near 811) and a conductive pattern (811) formed on the drain region (top of 699 near 811),
said conductive pattern (811) being connected to a common bit line extending horizontally through the horizontally aligned channel layers (111; where 111 so extends based upon figure 4A),
wherein the IGO material is deposited to a thickness of 10nm to 20nm (¶ 0100, where the thickness can be from 10nm to 25nm).
wherein each of the electrode layers (WL0-WL6) operates as a control gate ( as shown in figure 1 each of the WL lines are connected to a gate).
Regarding the limitation,
where the IGO material is crystallized through thermal treatment performed in a temperature range of 650 C to 750 C.
wherein the IGO material has a (222) crystal plane and IGO material exhibits a field-effect mobility of 30 cm2/Vs or more.
Rabkin teaches:
an anneal temperature of 600C C. ¶ 0099.
Rabkin does not teach the same temperature range as disclosed by Applicant.
Saito teaches:
An oxide semiconductor device with a channel comprising indium, gallium, and oxygen. ¶ 0133-35.
Saito also teaches:
that the post formation anneal can be performed by a plurality of different means, ¶ 0148, and this anneal can be performed at 650-750C, ¶ 0149.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the to use this higher anneal temperature taught by Rabkin as Saito’s heat treatment (anneal) has the effect of dehydrating or dehydrogenating the oxide semiconductor layer. ¶ 0153.
Based upon the process described by Rabkin and Saito it would have been obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art would have gotten the claimed characteristics “wherein the IGO material has a (222) crystal plane and IGO material exhibits a field-effect mobility of 30 cm2/Vs or more” as the prior art uses the same process to form the IGO material.
Alternatively, or additionally, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Rabkin and Saito because when IGO is anneal above 300 °C it changes from an amorphous phase to a crystalline phase. ¶ 0025.
Further, motivation is provided by Ryu teaches:
That when one anneals higher 400-600 C one get the (222) plane in the IGO channel, ¶ 0022, and one can get an increase in drain current. See Figures 3a-d. Which further leads to a greater on/off current. ¶ 0029.
Thus, the Ryu provides further motivation to combine Rabkin with Saito.
Regarding claim 4, Rabkin teaches at least in figures 5A-B:
wherein the multilayers (696-698) are oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) layers (¶ 0046).
Regarding claim 5, Rabkin teaches at least in figures 5A-B:
wherein the transition metal comprises aluminum (Al), titanium (Ti) and titanium nitride (TiN) (see claim 1 where Al can used), or a combination thereof.
Regarding claim 6,
Claim 6 is a characteristic of the IGO material. Because the IGO material is formed in the same manner as Applicant it is obvious that it would have the same memory window voltage characteristic as claimed.
Regarding claim 7,
wherein the tunneling oxide layer (Rabkin 698) is formed of an aluminum oxide material (¶ 0046, where 698 can comprise oxides and/or nitrides. The oxides and nitrides are described in ¶ 0046 as being SiN, AlO, and SiO2. Therefore it would have been obvious based upon the teachings of Rabkin the tunneling oxide layer could have been formed of AlO, aluminum oxide),
the charge trap layer (Rabkin 697) is formed of a silicon nitride material (¶ 0046, where 697 can be SiN), and
the blocking oxide layer (Rabkin 696) is formed of silicon oxide material (¶ 0046, where 696 can comprise SiO2).
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments filed May 12, 2026 are not persuasive. These arguments rely upon the declaration filed on May 12, 2026 by Chang Hwan Choi. The arguments are not persuasive for the reasons discussed in Declaration under 37 CFR § 1.132 section above.
Conclusion
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/VINCENT WALL/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2898
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