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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Claims
Applicant’s election, without traverse, of Group I, claims 1-10 in the reply filed on July 14th, 2026 is acknowledged. Non-elected invention of Group II and III, claims 11-20 have been withdrawn from consideration. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Action on merits of Group I, claims 1-10 as follows.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on December 10th, 2025, April 07th, 2026 and June 16th, 2026 have been considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 05/16th/2024 are acceptable.
Specification
The specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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 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.
Claims 1-2, 4-9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being clearly anticipated by Liu (US 2022/0108915, hereinafter as Liu ‘915).
Regarding Claim 1, Liu ‘915 teaches a semiconductor processing method comprising: providing a carbon-containing precursor (Fig. 1, (102); [0083]) to a processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber (101; [0083]), wherein a substrate is disposed in the processing region, and wherein the substrate defines a feature;
contacting the substrate with the carbon-containing precursor, wherein the contacting forms a carbon-containing material on the substrate (see para. [0083]) that partially lines the feature (202; [0088]);
performing a silicon-containing atomic layer deposition (ALD) process, wherein the silicon-containing ALD process (see para. [0062]) deposits a silicon-containing material (203; [0089]) at a bottom portion of the feature; and repeating (cyclic process; [0062]) the operations to fill the feature with silicon-containing material (see Fig. 2H).
Regarding Claim 2, Liu ‘915 teaches the carbon-containing precursor comprises a hydrocarbon (see para. [0047]).
Regarding Claim 4, Liu ‘915 teaches the feature is characterized by a depth of greater than or about 1 µm (see para. [0032]).
Regarding Claim 5, Liu ‘915 teaches forming plasma effluents of the carbon-containing precursor (see para. [0019], [0026]-[0027]; and claim 1).
Regarding Claim 6, Liu ‘915 teaches the carbon-containing material is discontinuous (see para. [0045]).
Regarding Claim 7, Liu ‘915 teaches the silicon-containing ALD process is plasma-enhanced (see para. [0034] and [0062]).
Regarding Claim 8, Liu ‘915 teaches the silicon-containing ALD process removes the carbon-containing material (see para. [0089]).
Regarding Claim 9, Liu ‘915 teaches the silicon-containing material is not deposited on the carbon-containing material (see para. [0089]).
Regarding Claim 10, Liu ‘915 teaches the silicon-containing material fills the feature from bottom-up (see para. [0084]).
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 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu ‘915 as applied to claim 1 above.
Regarding Claim 3, Liu ‘915 teaches the feature is characterized by an aspect ratio of greater than or about 1:0.5 to 1:250 (see para. [0033]).
Thus, Liu ‘915 is shown to teach all the features of the claim with the exception of explicitly the limitations: “the feature is characterized by an aspect ratio of greater than or about 10:1”.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have the feature is characterized by an aspect ratio of greater than or about 10:1, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233. The claim would have been obvious in the absence of a showing that the claimed range(s) achieve unexpected results relative to the prior art range. In re Woodruff, 16 USPQ2d 1935, 1937 (Fed. Cir. 1990). See also In re Huang, 40 USPQ2d 1685, 1688 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (claimed ranges of a result effective variable, which do not overlap the prior art ranges, are unpatentable unless they produce a new and unexpected result which is different in kind and not merely in degree from the results of the prior art). See also In re Boesch, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA) (discovery of optimum value of result effective variable in known process is ordinarily within skill of art) and In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233 (CCPA 1955) (selection of optimum ranges within prior art general conditions is obvious).
A person of ordinary skills in the art is motivated to have the feature is characterized by an aspect ratio of greater than or about 10:1 when this improves the methods for depositing silicon-containing material on a substrate and to filling a gap with silicon-containing material during the manufacturing of electronic devices and structures.
Examiner’s Note
Applicant is reminded that the Examiner is entitled to give the broadest reasonable interpretation to the language of the claims. Furthermore, the Examiner is not limited to Applicants' definition which is not specifically set forth in the claims. See MPEP 2111, 2123, 2125, 2141.02 VI, and 2182.
Examiner has cited particular paragraph numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner. See MPEP 2141.02 VI.
In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The following patents are cited to further show the state of the art with respect to semiconductor devices:
Shen et al. (US 2022/0127718 A1)
Ou et al. (US 2018/0061628 A1)
Paranjipe et al. (US 2006/0128139 A1)
For applicant’s benefit portions of the cited reference(s) have been cited to aid in the review of the rejection(s). While every attempt has been made to be thorough and consistent within the rejection it is noted that the PRIOR ART MUST BE CONSIDERED IN ITS ENTIRETY, INCLUDING DISCLOSURES THAT TEACH AWAY FROM THE CLAIMS. See MPEP 2141.02 VI.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DZUNG T TRAN whose telephone number is (571) 270-3911. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8 AM-5PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sue Purvis can be reached on (571) 272-1236. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DZUNG TRAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2893
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