Oleg Serebryanov et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 31, 2020

13866505 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2020)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/866,505 04/19/2013 OLEG SEREBRYANOV 17039USA 7667 55649 7590 03/31/2020 Moser Taboada / Applied Materials, Inc. 1030 Broad Street Suite 203 Shrewsbury, NJ 07702 EXAMINER STAPLETON, ERIC S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3761 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/31/2020 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): ataboada@mtiplaw.com docketing@mtiplaw.com llinardakis@mtiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte OLEG SEREBRYANOV, JOSEPH M. RANISH, and ALEXANDER GOLDIN Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 Technology Center 3700 ____________ Before STEFAN STAICOVICI, CHARLES N. GREENHUT, and FREDERICK C. LANEY, Administrative Patent Judges. LANEY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision (entered May 11, 2017, “Final Act.”) to reject claims 1, 3–6, 9–15, and 18–21 (all the claims on appeal). Claims 2, 7, 8, 16, and 17 have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Applied Materials, Incorporated. Appeal Br. 4. Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The disclosed subject matter relates to “powering an array of lamps to heat a substrate in various thermal processes, such as rapid thermal processing (RTP), chemical vapor deposition (e.g., epitaxial deposition), or other substrate processes that use lamps for heating.” Spec. ¶ 16. Claims 1 and 15 are independent. We reproduce claim 1 below as an example of the claimed subject matter on appeal with emphasis added to the recited language that is central to Appellant’s argument. 1. An apparatus for heating a substrate in a process chamber, comprising: a plurality of lamp groups, each of the plurality of lamp groups comprising one or more sets of lamps to provide radiant energy to heat a substrate when disposed in the process chamber, wherein each set of lamps comprises a plurality of lamps, all of the plurality of lamps being wired in series within the each set of lamps, and wherein the each set of lamps is wired in parallel with respect to other sets of lamps within the one or more sets of lamps; a plurality of DC to DC converters, coupled to each of the plurality of lamp groups, to step down voltage to the each of the plurality of lamp groups; a three-phase alternating current (AC) power source to produce a three-phase AC input voltage; a lamp driver, coupled to the three-phase AC power source and to all of the plurality of lamp groups, to control the plurality of lamp groups, each lamp driver comprising a rectifier, coupled to the AC power source to convert the three-phase AC input voltage to DC voltage; and a filter capacitor, coupled to the lamp driver and all of the plurality of lamp groups, that filters the DC voltage from the rectifier. Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 3 EVIDENCE Name Reference Date Neulinger et al. US 4,873,620 Oct. 10, 1989 Knoot US 2003/0029859 A1 Feb. 13, 2003 Hadizad US 2005/0029993 A1 Feb. 10, 2005 Camm US 2005/0179354 A1 Aug. 18, 2005 Shimizu et al. US 2008/0187299 A1 Aug. 07, 2008 Ramachandran et al. US 2010/0308729 A1 Dec. 09, 2010 Newman, Jr. US 2011/0121752 A1 May 26, 2011 Goldin et al. US 2011/0206358 A1 Aug. 25, 2011 REJECTIONS Claims 1, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18, 19, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Knoot, Goldin, and Shimizu. Claims 4 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, and Neulinger. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, Neulinger, and Newman. Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, and Hadizad. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, and Ramachandran. Claims 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, and Camm. Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 4 ANALYSIS For independent claims 1 and 15, the Examiner finds Knoot discloses several of the recited elements for the claimed apparatus and method to heat a substrate in a process chamber. Final Act. 2–3 (citing Knoot ¶¶ 38, 40, 42, 44, 50, Fig. 2). In particular, regarding Knoot, the Examiner finds that it discloses “a lamp group (e.g., lamps 1–6) comprising one or more sets of lamps to provide radiant energy to heat a substrate when disposed in the process chamber, and wherein each set of lamps is wired in parallel with respect to other sets of lamps.” Id. at 2 (citing Knoot ¶ 50, Fig. 2) (emphasis added); see also id. at 11–12. But the Examiner finds Knoot is insufficient to evidence the following elements: a plurality of lamp groups, that each set of lamps comprises a plurality of lamps wired in series within the set of lamps, and a plurality of lamp drivers connected to the AC power source, wherein each lamp driver is respectively coupled to a corresponding lamp group of the plurality of lamp groups. Final Act. 2–3, 4. For these missing elements, the Examiner first turns to Goldin and finds it to disclose “a plurality of lamp groups . . . and a plurality of lamp drivers . . . connected to the AC power source . . ., wherein each lamp driver is respectively coupled to a corresponding lamp group of the plurality of lamp groups.” Id. at 4 (citing Goldin ¶¶ 25, 29, 30, Fig. 1). The Examiner determines that a skilled artisan would have known to modify the apparatus of Knoot with the above elements “in order to maintain a desired voltage across the lamps.” Id. (citing Goldin ¶ 32). The Examiner turns next to Shimizu and finds that it discloses “sets of lamps . . . wherein each set of lamps comprises a plurality of lamps wired in series with the set of lamps.” Id. at 5 (citing Shimizu ¶¶ 101, 104, Figs. 7, 9). The Examiner determines Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 5 that a skilled artisan would have known to modify further the modified apparatus of Knoot, in view of Goldin, to incorporate the above Shimizu teaching “in order to reduce the power supply equipment.” Id. (citing Shimizu ¶ 104). The Examiner summarizes the above combination as follows: it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the lamp group and lamp driver configuration of Knoot to have each lamp group connected to a lamp driver as taught by Goldin in order to maintain a desired voltage across the lamps and that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the sets of lamps of Knoot to have a plurality lamps wired in series within each set as taught by Shimizu in order to reduce the power supply equipment Ans. 2–3. Appellant argues that the Examiner’s evidence and reasoning is insufficient to show that a skilled artisan would have modified the apparatus of Knoot, in view of Goldin and Shimizu, to reconfigure the wiring of the lamp sets to be both series within the sets and parallel between the sets. Appeal Br. 7–13. Appellant “disagree[s] with the Examiner’s conclusion that Knoot discloses ‘wherein each set of lamps is wired in parallel with respect to other sets of lamps’ because Figure 2 and paragraph 50 clearly disclose that the lamps within the Zone are wired in parallel, while the actual Zones are provided varying signals, unrelated to each other.” Id. at 7. Appellant contends that, although “the lamps 1-6 within Zone A are wired parallel to each other,” “the actual Zones A–E do not have a parallel wiring relationship with each other.” Id. In other words, Appellant argues that Knoot describes Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 6 a set that has lamps wired in parallel, but it does not disclose a set of lamps wired in parallel with respect to another set of lamps. The Examiner clarifies that the rejection relies on forming multiple sets within the Zone, rather than each Zone having a single set. In other words, the Examiner finds that the six lamps within Zone A could be considered two sets of three lamps, which would be wired in parallel with respect to each other because all of the lamps in the Zone are wired in parallel. Ans. 4. The Examiner supports this position by pointing to the teaching in paragraph 51 of Knoot, which explains that the lamps of each zone may have two different select signals applied to them (e.g., “Signal 1 is applied to Lamps 1, 3 and 5 of Zone A, while Signal 2 is applied Lamps 2, 4 and 6 of Zone A”). Id. Appellant’s argument in this regard is not commensurate with the Examiner’s rejection because it focuses on the wiring between Zones, rather than between lamps within each Zone, which the Examiner identifies as forming the multiple sets. Appellant, however, argues that the Examiner’s reasoning to modify the wiring of the lamp sets within the zones of Knoot in the manner claimed is also deficient. Appeal Br. 8–13. This is so, Appellant argues, because Shimizu teaches wiring all of the lamps in series to derive the benefit of reducing the power supply equipment. Id. at 8–11. Appellant argues additionally that modifying the wiring of the alleged sets of lamps in the Zones of Knoot to be in series would render Knoot inoperable for its intended purpose. Id. at 11–13. Appellant contends that the proposed modification would entirely change the operation of Knoot, which teaches a control scheme that relies on individually controlling each lamp. Id. at 12. “That is, in Knoot the programming can be changed to implement different Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 7 processes or even during processing because each radiant energy source can be delivered a different/respective power signal.” Reply Br. 4. Appellant contends, “if the radiant energy sources in each set were connected in series, each of the radiant energy sources in that series would receive a same signal, which is not desirable in and would destroy the utility of the invention of Knoot.” Id. at 5. We agree the Examiner’s articulated reason, “to reduce the power supply equipment,” is alone insufficient to explain why a skilled artisan would have modified the wiring of Knoot’s the lamps zones in the manner claimed. Knoot describes a switching array that includes a switch at each lamp to control the application of power to the lamps. Knoot ¶ 45. A lamp select signal is provided to an assignment matrix that selectively controls the delivery of power to each lamp based the programming of the matrix. Id. ¶ 47. The lamp select signals are delivered to the respective switches of the individual lamps that are assigned to the same control zone. Id. The assignment matrix determines which switches of the switching array are in the particular groups or zones. Id. ¶ 48. The programmable array can be programmed to accommodate any configuration of lamp zones and/or to control individual lamps. Id. Knoot teaches that the “programmability allows for rapid customization of lamphead assemblies for different process needs” and “can be changed to implement different processes or even during processing.” Id. ¶ 53. Shimizu teaches to connect all of the lamps on a substrate in series to reduce the power supply equipment, which would necessarily limit the control of the lamps on the substrate and restrict the ability to control individually the lamps on the substrate. In view of Knoot’s teaching of a Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 8 scheme that allows for rapid customization by individually controlling each lamp, we agree with Appellant that it is unclear why a skilled artisan would have modified the wiring to the lamps for sets of lamps wired in series. To the contrary, modifying the lamps to be in series would actually undermine Knoot’s stated purpose of being able to control individually each lamp to accommodate any configuration of lamp zones. As a result, the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1 and 15 is improper. Therefore, because the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1 and 15 is deficient and the Examiner does not rely on Goldin, Neulinger, Newman, Hadizad, Ramachandran, or Camm to cure the deficiency, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 3–6, 9–15, and 18–21 (all the claims on appeal). CONCLUSION In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21 103 Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu 1, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21 4, 5 103 Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, Neulinger 4, 5 6 103 Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, Neulinger, Newman 6 9 103 Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, Hadizad 9 12 103 Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, Ramachandran 12 13, 20 103 Knoot, Goldin, Shimizu, Camm 13, 20 Appeal 2018-004331 Application 13/866,505 9 Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed Overall Outcome 1, 3–6, 9– 15, 18–21 REVERSED