Appeal No. 95-1009
Application 07/858,632
than the grooves; and (2) polishing away said portions of the
filling material to smooth the entire substrate surface.
Claim 3 further limits the method of claim 1 in reciting that
the leveling is achieved by a full surface etch back process.
For a proper rejection under § 102, every limitation of a
claim must identically appear in a single prior art reference
for it to anticipate the claim. See In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831,
832, 15 USPQ2d 1566, 1567 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Wolf describes
the deposition of a filler material such as SiO in a groove
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of a substrate by ECR-CVD (which is a method in which etching
and deposition are achieved concurrently, see the
specification, page 3, lines 11-16, and Wolf, page 237). Wolf
teaches that this deposition process partially planarizes the
surface and resist etchback is used to completely planarize
(i.e., level) the surface (see page 285). CMP (chemical
mechanical polishing) is then employed to polish the surface
in order to remove the oxide spikes formed by the etchback
conditions (Wolf, page 238). Wolf clearly emphasizes the use
of etchback planarization in combination with CMP (page 238).
Therefore every limitation of claims 1 and 3 is described by
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