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 § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 9-11, 13, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Shaw et al. (US 2022/0068661A1).
With respect to claims 1, 6 Shaw describes a selective anisotropic metal etch comprising: providing a substrate on a substrate support 135 in a chamber 100, the substrate including underlayers or etching target film (fig. 1; para 28) and metal-containing film 310 on the underlayers, a hardmask 312 providing an exposed first region and unexposed second region of the meta-containing film 310 (fig. 3; para 46, 47)
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; modifying the exposed surface of the metal-containing film 310 with a first processing gas including either oxygen-containing gas and fluorine-containing gas such as F2, SF6, NF3 (para 10, 56, 57); selectively removing the exposed region of the metal-containing film with a second removal gas with respect to the unexposed region under the hardmask 312 (para 62).
With respect to claim 2, the etching resistance of the second region under the hardmask 312 would be higher than that of the first region in the step of removing the exposed first region since the modification and the removing step tailored to the exposed region of the metal-containing film to selectively etching of the exposed region of the metal-containing.
With respect to claim 3, the method repeats the modification and removing step of the exposed first region such that the underlayers are exposed (fig. 3G, para 69)
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.
With respect to claims 9-11, the modification process using the first processing gas comprising O2 gas, Cl2, and HCl (para 57).
With respect to claim 13, the underlayers or etching target film comprises silicon-containing or carbon-containing film such as silicon, silicon oxide, carbon doped silicon oxides (para 28).
With respect to claim 18, Shaw teaches the apparatus that includes a chamber 100, a substrate support 135, and a system controller 165 controls the operation of other components, processing parameters in the processing chamber 100 (para 38, 44), which would control all the steps as described above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 14, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shaw as applied to claim 1 above.
With respect to claim 14, even though Shaw doesn’t teach etching the underlayers using the metal-containing film as a mask; however, he teaches “any of the film processing steps disclosed can also be performed on an under-layer formed on the substrate” (para 28). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one skilled in the art to continue processing the underlayers, as desired by etching the underlayers using the metal-containing film as mask, depending on the type of the semiconductor structure being manufactured with expected results.
With respect to claim 15, it is expected that all the steps from Shaw’s method would be able to performed in a same chamber 100 because he teaches performing each step and purging after each step during the process including modification, etching, and passivating (para 61, 68, 78).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 16, 17 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.
Claims 4 and its dependent claim 5 are allowed because the applied prior art Shaw doesn’t teach the metal-containing film include tin or titanium. Shawn teaches the metal-containing film comprises Ru, Ir, Pt, or Rh (para 46).
Claims 7 and its dependent claim 8 are allowed because the applied prior art Shaw doesn’t teach that second plasma using second processing gas for removing the exposed portion of the metal-containing film includes a chlorine-containing gas. Shaw teaches using inert gas for the removing step (para 62).
Claim 12 is allowed because the applied prior art Shaw doesn’t teach the removing step of the exposed metal-containing film comprises alternately repeating (i) formation of the second plasma using a gas including a hydrogen-containing gas and a nitrogen-containing gas as the second processing gas and (ii) formation of the second plasma using a gas including a chlorine-containing gas as the second processing gas.
Claims 16 and its dependent claim 17 are allowed because Shaw doesn’t teach the metal-containing film includes a metal-containing photoresist film, the first region is an exposed region of the metal-containing photoresist film, and the second region is an unexposed region of the metal-containing photoresist film. He teaches teaches the metal-containing film comprises Ru, Ir, Pt, or Rh (para 46).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUY VU NGUYEN DEO whose telephone number is (571)272-1462. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5 M-F.
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/DUY VU N DEO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1713
10/1/2026
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