Appeal No. 1999-1674
Application No. 08/923,949
15. A semiconductor wafer cleaning apparatus
comprising:
a cleaning environment having a wafer carrier; and
a plurality of jetting means for jetting a liquid
against a wafer within said cleaning environment, each said
jetting means including a plurality of jet nozzle holes,
wherein a first of the plurality of jetting means is located
at a bottom center of the cleaning tank with the plurality
of jet nozzle holes facing upward and a second of the
plurality of jetting means is located at both sides of the
cleaning tank with the plurality of jet nozzle holes facing
a center of the wafer carrier at an oblique angle, wherein
said liquid is directly sprayed from said jetting means onto
left, right, and bottom sides of the wafer.
The prior art references relied upon by the examiner are:
Seiichiro 4,753,258 Jun. 28, 1988
Hayami et al. (Hayami) 5,474,616 Dec. 12, 1995
Ando 5-182946 Jul. 23, 1993
(Published Japanese Patent Application)
Claims 1, 5, 15, 17 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as unpatentable over the combined disclosures of Seiichiro,
Ando, and Hayami.
We reverse the aforementioned Section 103 rejection for the
reasons set forth in the Brief and the Reply Brief. We add the
following primarily for emphasis.
As evidence of obviousness of the claimed subject matter
under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner relies on the combined
teachings of Seiichiro, Hayami, and Ando. The examiner finds
that Seiichiro teaches “a wafer cleaning apparatus comprising a
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