Appeal No. 2002-0974
Application 09/332,745
been obvious to rapidly cool an epitaxially deposited layer of
silicon on a silicon wafer at a rate of at least 10°C per
second4. While Asayama et al. do not disclose that cooling is
effected while the wafer is not in contact with a susceptor,
Inoue et al. does disclose that feature and Inoue et al.
discloses that the reason for removing the susceptor is to
increase the rate of cooling. Neither does Asayama et al.
disclose that their process may be effected in a single process
chamber but Nakagawa et al. discloses that in an integrated
semiconductor manufacturing process including heating, epitaxial
growth and cooling, the process may be conducted in a single
process chamber. We find that simple process economics and
efficiency would have motivated a person of ordinary skill to use
the least amount of apparatus necessary to carry out any
integrated process comprising multiple steps.
We remind appellants that the question which we address here
is what does the combination of references on which the examiner
has relied teach and what would the combined teachings have
suggested to a person of ordinary skill in the art. In re Keller,
642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). We remind
4 Asayama et al. describes cooling in terms of degrees
Kelvin (K) but we take official notice of the fact that one
degree K is the same as one degree C.
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