Appeal No. 95-0675
Application No. 08/070,487
This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 20
and 23-31, all the claims remaining in the present
application. Claim 20 is illustrative:
20. A method of making a laser beam programmable
semiconductor device, comprising the steps of:
forming a semiconductor body;
forming a shallow tank of conductivity type in said semi-
conductor body, said shallow tank being of conductivity type
opposite that of said body;
forming a first PN junction in said shallow tank; forming
a second PN junction in said shallow tank, said second PN
junction being spaced from said first PN junction; and
irradiating exclusively a programming area within one and only
one of said PN junctions with a laser beam, said PN junction
being permanently altered by the laser beam.
In addition to the admitted prior art found in
appellants' specification, the examiner relies upon the
following references in the rejection of the appealed claims:
Aswell et al. (Aswell) 4,387,503 June 14, 1983
Wills et al. (U.S. '729) 5,008,729 Apr. 16, 1991
Aswell et al. (Aswell '184) 07/233,184 Jan. 1984
(U.S. patent application)
Willis et al. (Japanese '654) 61-81654 Apr. 25, 1986
(Japanese Kokai application)
Appellants' claimed invention is directed to a method of
making a laser beam programmable semiconductor device wherein
damage produced by the laser beam causes a PN junction to be
-2-
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