PTAB

IPR2019-00375

ASM IP Holding BV v. Kokusai Electric Corp

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Semiconductor Manufacturing Apparatus
  • Brief Description: The ’063 patent discloses a remote-plasma, horizontal-flow reactor for manufacturing integrated circuits on semiconductor substrates. The technology is presented as an improvement over prior art "down-flow" reactors by generating active gas plasma species outside the reaction chamber and flowing them parallel to the substrate surfaces to reduce contamination and damage.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation over Shimada - Claims 1, 3, 6, 10, 11, and 15 are anticipated by Shimada under 35 U.S.C. §102.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shimada (JP Application Publication # H05-251391).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Shimada, a remote-plasma horizontal-flow reactor, disclosed every limitation of independent claim 1. Specifically, Shimada’s plasma generation vessel (25) was identified as the claimed external plasma source, its processing vessel (10) as the reaction chamber, and its radical inlet ports (23) and gas discharge ports (42) as the claimed supply and exhaust ports. Petitioner asserted Shimada explicitly showed multiple substrates processed simultaneously with active species flowing parallel to their surfaces. For claims 3 and 11, which require processing at a distance where active species concentration becomes "substantially constant," Petitioner argued this was inherently disclosed. Shimada’s partition wall (22) was designed to block short-lived, high-energy ions from reaching the wafers while allowing long-lived radicals to pass, achieving the stable concentration recited in the claims.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Shimada and Noble - Claims 3, 7, 11, and 12 are obvious over Shimada in view of Noble.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shimada (JP Application Publication # H05-251391) and Noble (6,450,116).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that if Shimada was found not to explicitly disclose the "substantially constant" concentration limitation, Noble supplied this teaching. Noble described a remote-plasma reactor that purposely separates the plasma source from the substrate by a "distance longer than the lifetime of the ions." This design feature expressly ensured that substantially all ions were eliminated before reaching the substrate, leaving a plasma of predominantly radicals. Petitioner argued this directly taught maintaining a stable or "substantially constant" concentration of active species at the wafer surface, as required by claims 3 and 11.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Noble's explicit teaching on ion elimination with Shimada's reactor to improve upon Shimada's stated goal of treating wafers with radicals rather than damaging ions.
    • Expectation of Success: Because both references described comparable remote-plasma systems for semiconductor processing, a POSITA would have predictably achieved the desired result.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Watanabe and Sivaramakrishnan - Claims 1, 2, 4, 8-10, 13, 14, and 16 are obvious over Watanabe in view of Sivaramakrishnan.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Watanabe (JP Application Publication # H07-094419) and Sivaramakrishnan (EP 0 843 347).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Watanabe’s horizontal-flow batch reactor, which featured alternating gas flow for uniform deposition but used an in-situ plasma source, was rendered obvious by Sivaramakrishnan. Sivaramakrishnan taught a unitary chamber that integrated both CVD and remote-plasma treatment to enhance throughput and film quality. Petitioner proposed a "combined reactor" where Watanabe's gas source was replaced with Sivaramakrishnan's remote-plasma system and gas mixing block, resulting in the apparatus of claim 1. Further, Watanabe’s disclosures of alternating flow between two sets of supply/exhaust ports and its use of a hot-wall heating method were asserted to teach the limitations of dependent claims 2 and 4, respectively.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references to achieve the recognized benefits of both systems: the high-quality films and reduced cycle times from Sivaramakrishnan’s unitary remote-plasma configuration, and the uniform batch processing from Watanabe’s horizontal, switched-flow design.
    • Expectation of Success: The integration of a well-understood remote-plasma source into a standard horizontal-flow CVD reactor was presented as a predictable modification with a high likelihood of success.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted claim 5 was obvious over Shimada, which suggested using slit-shaped openings instead of circular holes for the radical inlet ports. Petitioner also asserted claims 9 and 14 were obvious over the Watanabe/Sivaramakrishnan combination further in view of Kimura, which taught performing post-deposition plasma treatment at a temperature equal to the deposition temperature for tantalum oxide films.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "means for supplying a gas..." (Claims 8, 13): Petitioner contended this is a means-plus-function limitation under §112, sixth paragraph. The corresponding structure was identified as the gas manifolds and reactive gas inlets disclosed in Figures 6 and 16 of the ’063 patent.
  • "a distance where the concentration of the active species ... becomes substantially constant" (Claims 3, 11): Petitioner argued this term should be construed to encompass distances downstream from the plasma source at which the concentration of short-lived active species (ions) decreases to zero. This leaves only long-lived species (radicals), resulting in a substantially constant overall concentration, a key principle for their invalidity arguments.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-16 of the ’063 patent as unpatentable.