Appeal No. 1999-2202
Application No. 08/733,620
from the coil onto the workpiece and/or reduce deposition of
sputtered material from the target onto the coil. This appealed
subject matter is adequately illustrated by independent claim 1
which reads as follows:
1. An apparatus for energizing a plasma within a
semiconductor fabrication system to deposit material onto a
workpiece, the apparatus comprising:
a semiconductor fabrication chamber having a plasma
generation area within said chamber;
a coil carried internally by said chamber and positioned to
couple energy into said plasma generation area to ionize said
deposition material;
a source of sputtered deposition material positioned to
provide a stream of sputtered deposition material through said
coil into said plasma generation area; and
an arrangement of magnetic fields originating externally of
said coil and positioned to reduce sputtering from said coil onto
said workpiece.
The references set forth below are relied upon by the
examiner in the rejections before us:
Mintz 4,865,712 Sep. 12, 1989
Ohno et al. (Ohno) 4,716,491 Dec. 29, 1987
Barnes et al. (Barnes) 5,178,739 Jan. 12, 1993
Claims 1, 5, 12, 13 and 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being anticipated by Barnes.
Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), claims 1-5 and 12-17 are rejected
as being unpatentable over Barnes alone, claims 6, 7 and 18-21
2
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