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) 1-2,4-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Blomberg et al (KR 2018-0066873 A; Machine translation provided).
Regarding claim 1, Blomberg et al disclose an etching process, and more specifically, to a thermal atomic layer etching process using a sequential reaction [0004], wherein, a film on a substrate is etched in a reaction chamber by a chemical atomic layer etching process comprising one or more etching cycles. Each etching cycle includes the step of exposing a substrate to a first gaseous halide reactant (corresponding to the claimed modifier containing a halogen group), such as a nonmetallic halide reactant, to form a species adsorbed on the substrate, and then exposing the substrate to a second gaseous reactant, wherein the second gaseous reactant (corresponding to the etching activator) converts the adsorbed species into a volatile adduct comprising one or more atoms from the substrate to be etched. Volatile adducts can be removed from the reaction chamber, for example, by purging with an inert gas [0006].
Blomberg et al disclose a flowchart generally illustrating an example of an implementation of the ALE method. The ALE method illustrated in FIG. 1 includes a first exposure step (100), a first removal step (110) which corresponds to the claimed “purging the inside of the chamber”, a second exposure step (120), and a second removal step (130) [0157], [0159].
Blomberg et al disclose that after the second exposure step (120), excess second gaseous halide reactant and volatile reaction byproduct are removed from the reaction chamber in the second removal step (130), which corresponds the claimed “purging the inside of the chamber (the last step in claim 1).
Regarding claim 2, Blomberg et al disclose that the first gaseous reactant comprises 1,1-dichloroethane [0035]; and aforesaid gaseous reactant reads on the claimed modifier having chemical formula 1, wherein, X1 to X2 is chlorine element and R1 is hydrogen an dR2 is a liner alkyl group having 1-5 carbon atoms.
Regarding claim 2, Blomberg et al disclose that additional reactants may be provided separately or combined with one or more reactants, such as a second reactant. In some embodiments, the additional reactant may be an oxygen source. For example, additional reactants may include, for example, water, oxygen, or ozone; In some embodiments, water, oxygen, and/or ozone are combined with a second reactant [0124]-[0125]; and aforesaid “second reactant” corresponds to the claimed “etching activator”.
Regarding claims 5-6, Blomberg et al disclose that the target material to be etched includes a metal such as Ir, Ru, Rh, Mo, Cu, Sb, Al, Ti, Co, Ni, Ta, Al, Zr, Hf, or W [0152]; In some embodiments, the etching target material includes metals such as W, Pt, Cu, Ni, Co, Ti, Zn, Nb, Mo, Ta, etc. In some embodiments, the etching target material includes metal nitrides, such as MoN, NbN, SiN, TiN, TaN, WN, AlN, etc.[0162].
Regarding claim 7, Blomberg et al disclose that the ALE cycle may be performed at a temperature in the range of about 20°C to about 1200°C, about 50°C to about 800°C, about 75°C to about 600°C, about 300°C to about 500°C, or about 350°C to about 450°C [0149].
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 8-10,12-16 and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blomberg et al (KR 2018-0066873 A) as applied to claims 1-2 and 4-7 above, and further in view of Kwon et al (US 2021/0193473.
Blomberg et al disclose above for the claim 1 but fail to teach such atomic layer etching cycle being performed for treating thin film during manufacturing volatile memory device, non-volatile memory device as the context of the claims 8-10,12-16 and 18-20.
However, Kwon et al teach that the atomic layer etching (ALE) method is performed may include all sorts of substrates having a manufacturing process including an etching process. For example, the substrate 100 may include various substrates such as a substrate for manufacturing a semiconductor device such as DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory is a common type of volatile computer memory), NAND flash memory (NAND flash memory is a type of non-volatile storage technology), etc. [0025].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to employ Kwon et al's teaching of using such ALE process to manufacturing various semiconductor devices, into the teaching of Blomberg et al for efficiently forming such devices as suggested by Kwon et al.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3,11 and 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art fails to teach or renders obvious to a process, including the step of supplying the etching activator represented by the Chemical Formula 3 as the context of claim 3.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record, listed in the PTO-892 and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHAMIM AHMED whose telephone number is (571)272-1457. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH (8-5:30pm).
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SHAMIM AHMED
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1713
/SHAMIM AHMED/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1713
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