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 11-16 and 21-34 in the reply filed on 8/11/26 is acknowledged.
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.
Claim(s) 28 and 31 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yamashita (US pat 10373999).
With respect to claim 28, Yamashita teaches a device, comprising (see figs. 1-20, particularly fig. 1 and associated text):
an image sensor structure including a substrate 109, a photon detector 112, 102, 110 in a front side (bottom) of the substrate, a multilayer reflector 104 on the front side of the substrate, and a capping layer 214, 216, 217 on a back side (top) of the substrate;
a system-on-a-chip 124 attached to the multilayer reflector, the system-on-a-chip including a first pad (conductor right under 120, 122) and a second pad (conductor right under 120, 122) on a surface thereof, the first pad and the second pad being electrically connected to the photon detector by contacts 120, 122 extending through the multilayer reflector; and
an integrated circuit 103 attached to the system-on-a-chip.
With respect to claim 31, Yamashita teaches a dielectric layer 130 between the multilayer reflector and the front side of the substrate. See fig. 1 and associated text.
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) 29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamashita (US pat 10373999).
With respect to claim 29, Yamashita teaches the capping layer includes dielectric or at least one of SiN, SiC, SiON, SiO2 and SiCN but fails to teach the range for the thickness for the capping layer.
However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of making semiconductor devices to determine the workable or optimal value or range for the thickness for the capping layer through routine experimentation and optimization to obtain optimal or desired device performance because there is no evidence indicating that claimed is critical or produces any unexpected results and it has been held that it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges of a result-effective variable within given prior art conditions by routine experimentation. See MPEP 2144.05.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-16 and 21-27 are allowed.
Claims 30 and 32-34 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.
Examiner’s Cited References
The cited references generally show the similar or related structure having a photo detector having a guard ring between a sensing node and in an isolation structure, a common node between the guard ring and the isolation structure and an isolation extension extending from the isolation structure as presently claimed by applicant.
Conclusion
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LONG . PHAM
Examiner
Art Unit 2823
/LONG PHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2897
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