Appeal No. 2002-2087
Application No. 09/733,836
has source and drain diffusion regions over respective source and
drain wells, with a shallow trench isolation (STI) formed over and
into the substrate to separate the source and drain diffusion
regions and a portion of the source and drain wells, and source and
drain contact structures formed on and extending through the STI to
contact the source and drain diffusion regions (Brief, page 2).
Representative independent claim 9 is reproduced below:
9. An electrostatic discharge protection structure
comprising:
a semiconductor substrate, the semiconductor substrate having
source and drain diffusion regions, the semiconductor
substrate having respective source and drain wells under
the source and drain diffusion regions;
a shallow trench isolation formed over the semiconductor
substrate and into the semiconductor substrate to
separate the source and drain diffusion regions and a
portion of the source and drain wells; and
source and drain contact structures respectively formed on
the shallow trench isolation over the source and drain
diffusion regions and extending through the shallow
trench isolation to contact the source and drain
diffusion regions.
The examiner relies upon the following references as evidence
of obviousness:
Williams et al. (Williams) 5,545,909 Aug. 13, 1996
Lin et al. (Lin) 6,218,226 B1 Apr. 17, 2001
(filed Jan. 21, 2000)
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007