Appeal No. 2003-2175
Application No. 09/712,234
Claims 1 through 11 and 13 through 24 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combined disclosures of
Chong and Yamazaki.
We reverse.
As evidence of obviousness of the claimed subject matter under
section 103, the examiner relies on the combined disclosures of
Chong and Yamazaki. Chong requires a capping layer to cover a
metal layer on a particular semiconductor device before annealing
it with a laser beam to activate source/drain regions and, at the
same time, form a metal silicide layer. The presence of the
capping layer, according to Chong, is important during laser beam
annealing to form its particular semiconductor device. Thus, Chong
not only does not teach the claimed exposed metal layer during
annealing, but also does not teach the claimed heating temperature
and time.
To remedy these deficiencies, the examiner relies on the
disclosure of Yamazaki. Yamazaki teaches using laser beam
annealing or non-laser beam heating annealing. When the non-laser
beam annealing is employed, the claimed temperature may be used
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