Appeal No. 2003-1208
Application 09/590,805
Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-7 and 22-25 over Kalnitsky
in view of the appellants’ admitted prior art
Claim 1
Kalnitsky discloses an integrated circuit having thereon two
transistors (col. 3, lines 32-34). It is undisputed that each of
the transistors necessarily has three leads, one of which is
connected directly or indirectly to ground.2 One of the
transistors (which corresponds to the appellants’ first device)
is a standard transistor and the other transistor (which
corresponds to the appellants’ second device) is a radiation-hard
(i.e., increased radiation resistance) transistor (col. 3,
lines 32-37).3,4 Due to their difference in radiation
sensitivity, the two transistors degrade or recover from ionizing
radiation at different rates (col. 3, lines 37-39). After the
two transistors have been formed on the integrated circuit,
2 The appellants’ claim 1 does not require that the third
leads of the first and second devices are electrically connected
directly to ground.
3 The radiation hard transistor is rendered resistant to
radiation by implanting it with silicon ions that function as
electron traps (col. 2, line 58 - col. 3, line 7).
4 There is no dispute as to whether the effective threshold
voltage of Kalnitsky’s standard transistor is more susceptible to
being lowered by ionizing radiation than is the effective
threshold voltage of Kalnitsky’s radiation-hard transistor.
4
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