Appeal No. 96-2940
Application 08/259,073
The Examiner's position is as follows (EA4-5):
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art to have substituted the steps of forming a
planarizing oxide layer followed by etchback over the
sacrificial spacers for the step of forming thermal oxide
between the spacers in the process of Hsue since Jun et
al teach such a process as appropriate for exposing
sacrificial spacers between oxide in a narrow mask
forming process such as that of Hsue.
It further would have been obvious to have formed
conformal polysilicon and then polysilicon sacrificial
spacers instead of nitride spacers in the process of Hsue
since Jun et al teach polysilicon spacers as being an
appropriate sacrificial spacer material when etched
between oxide lines.
We are not persuaded by the Examiner's reasoning because
we find no good explanation of why one of ordinary skill in
the semiconductor art would have sought to use the glass and
polysilicon teachings of Jun in the environment of Hsue
without using Appellant's teachings as a guide. Hsue does not
suggest substitute materials for the silicon nitride sidewall
spacers or for the silicon oxide layer between spacers,
although we have no doubt that one skilled in the art would
have recognized that other materials and processes could have
been used. Jun does not disclose sidewall spacers or
implantation of impurity ions and does not resemble Hsue in
any way identified by the Examiner such that its construction
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