Ex Parte Varadarajan et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 9, 2018

14616435 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 9, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/616,435 02/06/2015 Bhadri N. Varadarajan
83422 7590 11/14/2018
Weaver Austin Villeneuve & Sampson - LAMR/NOVL
P.O. BOX 70250
OAKLAND, CA 94612-0250
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www .uspto.gov
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
LAMRP175/3576-1US 6801
EXAMINER
PATERSON, BRIGITTE A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2812
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/14/2018 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
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eofficeaction@appcoll.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BHADRI N. VARADARAJAN, BO GONG,
andZHE GUI
Appeal2018-001444
Application 14/616,435 1
Technology Center 2800
Before DONNA M. PRAISS, JEFFREY R. SNAY, and BRIAND. RANGE,
Administrative Patent Judges.
RANGE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
SUMMARY
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
decision rejecting claims 1-16, 18, and 19. We have jurisdiction. 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
1 Appellant is the Applicant, Novellus Systems, Inc., which, according to the
Appeal Brief, is also the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appellant also
notes that in June of 2012, Novellus Systems, Inc. merged with Lam
Research Corporation and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lam Research
Corporation. Id.
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Application 14/616,435
STATEMENT OF THE CASE2
Appellant describes the invention as relating to formation of silicon
carbide films. Spec. ,r 2. The films can be used in manufacturing
semiconductor devices. Id. ,r 26. Claim 1, reproduced below with
formatting added for readability and emphasis added to certain key
recitations, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method of depositing a silicon carbide film on a
substrate, the method comprising:
(a) providing the substrate to a reaction chamber;
(b) flowing one or more silicon-containing precursors to
the substrate, wherein each of the one or more silicon-
containing precursors have
(i) one or more silicon-hydrogen bonds and/or
silicon-silicon bonds,
(ii) one or more silicon-carbon bonds, silicon-
nitrogen bonds, and/or silicon-oxygen bonds,
(iii) no carbon-oxygen bonds, and
(iv) no carbon-nitrogen bonds;
( c) flowing a source gas into a plasma source;
( d) generating, from the source gas, radicals of hydrogen
in the plasma source;
( e) flowing the radicals of hydrogen onto the
substrate, wherein all or at least 90°/o of the radicals are
radicals of hydrogen in the ground state that react with the
one or more silicon-containing precursors under conditions
that break the silicon-containing precursor's silicon-
hydrogen bonds or silicon-silicon bonds but preserve the
2 In this Decision, we refer to the Final Office Action dated February 22,
2017 ("Final Act."), the Appeal Brief filed May 19, 2017 ("Appeal Br."), the
Examiner's Answer dated September 22, 2017 ("Ans."), and the Reply Brief
filed November 22, 2017 ("Reply Br.").
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Application 14/616,435
silicon-containing precursor's silicon-carbon bonds, silicon-
nitrogen bonds, and/or silicon-oxygen bonds; and
( f) forming, from the reaction, a silicon oxycarbide
(SiOC) film, silicon nitricarbide (SiNC) film, or silicon
oxynitricarbide (SiONC) film on the substrate, wherein the one
or more silicon-containing precursors include an
alkylcarbosilane, a siloxane, a silazane, or any combination
thereof when forming SiOC film, SiNC film, or SiONC film,
wherein the SiOC film, SiNC film, or SiONC film has a
conformality of at least 90%.
Appeal Br. 20 (Claims App.).
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies upon the prior art below in rejecting the claims
on appeal:
Bicker et al.
("Bicker")
Mallick et al.
("Mallick")
US 2010/0075077 Al Mar. 25, 2010
US 2010/0081293 Al Apr. 1, 2010
A. M. Wrobel & A. Walkiewicz-Pietrzykowska, Oligomerization and
Polymerization Steps in Remote Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition
of Silicon-Carbon and Silica Films from Organosilicon Sources, 13
CHEM. MATER. 1884--95 (2001) ("Wrobel").
REJECTIONS
The Examiner maintains the following rejections on appeal:
Rejection 1. Claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 112 as failing to comply
with the enablement requirement. Final Act. 2. 3
3 The Examiner cites In re Mayhew, 527 F.2d 1229 (CCPA 1976), when
addressing Appellant's arguments concerning obviousness of claim 1. Ans.
3--4 ( stating that Appellant's argument "suggests that the disclosure does not
enable one of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention"). The
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Rejection 2. Claims 1-5, 10-16, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Mallick, in view of Wrobel and Bicker. Id. at 4--11. 4
Rejection 3. Claims 6-9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Mallick, in view of Wrobel and Bicker, and further in view of Xiao. Id. at
11-13.
Rejection 4. Claim 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Mallick, in view of Wrobel and Bicker, and further in view of Swanson. Id.
at 13-14.
ANALYSIS
Rejection 1. The Examiner rejects claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 112 as
failing to comply with the enablement requirement. Final Act. 2. We
summarily sustain this rejection because Appellant does not address it.
Appeal Br. 6-7 (not identifying this rejection as a ground to be reviewed on
appeal).
Rejection 2. The Examiner rejects claims 1-5, 10-16, and 19 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Mallick, in view of Wrobel and
Bicker. Final Act. 4. The Examiner finds that Mallick teaches a method of
depositing oxygen doped silicon carbide comprising many of the recitations
of claim 1. Id. at 4--5. The Examiner finds that Mallick does not explicitly
teach that the radical species break Si-Si and Si-H bonds in silicon precursor
layers. Id. at 5. The Examiner finds that Wrobel teaches using hydrogen
Examiner does not, however, raise an enablement rejection with respect to
claim 1.
4 The Examiner does not reference claims 12 and 16 at page 4 of the Final
Office Action, but the Examiner provides rejections of these two claims at
pages 9-11.
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Application 14/616,435
radicals in a ground state to break Si-Si and Si-H bonds in silicon precursor
layers. Id. The Examiner determines "[i]t would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art ... to add the invention of Wrobel, including
using hydrogen radicals in the ground state in order to break the Si-Si and
Si-H bonds of the silicon precursor layer of the invention of Mallick." Id.
at 6.
Appellant argues that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not
have had reason to combine the teachings of Mallick and Wrobel. Appeal
Br. 14. In particular, Appellant argues that Mallick teaches flowable
dielectric layers used in a process for "bottom-up" filling. Id. ( citing Dec. 8,
2016, Declaration of Mr. Bhadri Varadarajan ,r 8 ("Varadarajan Deel.")); see
Mallick ,r,r 19 (referring to formation of "a flowable dielectric on the
substrate surface"), 27 (same). Appellant argues that using the Wrobel
hydrogen radicals with Mallick "would lead to a deposited film that could be
severely hydrogen-terminated, which would prevent deposition of a flowable
film and thereby be in direct opposition to the teachings of Mallick." Id.
The sworn declaration of Mr. Varadarajan provides some factual support for
this argument. Varadarajan Deel. ,r 13.
The Examiner responds with one sentence: "this statement is
unsubstantiated and is in disagreement with the prior art which teaches that
hydrogenated silicon carbide films have low-dielectric constants ( see US
20080277765[5] [0052])." Ans. 4; see also Final Act. 18 (responding to
paragraph 13 of the Varadarajan Declaration by stating that Wrobel "is
merely being relied upon to teach the obviousness of using radicals of
5 The Examiner is referring to Lane et al., US 2008/0277765 Al, Nov. 13,
2008 ("Lane").
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hydrogen in a ground state in order to break the same bonds as those
revealed in Mallick").
Although the Varadarajan Declaration is somewhat cursory, the
Declaration nevertheless is evidence supporting Appellant's argument.
Reply Br. 9-10. The Examiner provides no technical reasoning why
hydrogen-termination preventing flowability would not dissuade a person
having ordinary skill in the art from combining the teachings of Mallick and
Wrobel, does not explain how or whether paragraph 52 of Lane addresses
the hydrogen-termination and flowability issue, and identifies no evidence
rebutting the Varadarajan Declaration.
The preponderance of the evidence before us indicates that, because
of hydrogen-termination potentially preventing dielectric flowability, a
person of skill in the art would not have had reason to combine the teachings
of Mallick and Wrobel. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner's
rejection of claim 1. For the same reason, we also do not sustain the
Examiner's rejection of the remaining claims subject to this rejection, which
each depends from claim 1.
Rejections 3 and 4. These rejections address claims that depend from
claim 1. The Examiner's use of Xiao and Swanson do not cure the error
addressed above. Final Act. 13-14. We, therefore, do not sustain these
rejections.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner's rejection of claim 11
under 35 U.S.C. § 112 as failing to comply with the enablement
requirement. We reverse the remainder of the Examiner's rejections.
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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