Appeal No. 2005-2100
Application No. 09/826,038
In the present embodiment, in order to accurately set the final dimension
of the interconnection 52 to a desired value, dimensional errors in the
resist film 50 and those in the oxide film 48 are corrected by means of the
technique to be described below.
As shown in Fig. 7E, in the present embodiment, the resist film 50
is formed through use of photolithography at first. Then, the oxide film
48 is dry-etched using the resist film 50 as a mask. After removing the
resist film 50, the dimension of the patterned oxide film 48 is measured.
The resultantly-measured value is reflected in the requirements for wet-
etching the oxide film 48 by means of the feed forward technique.
In my opinion, it would seem quite clear that Appellant’s specification supports
the construction of claim 6 as comprising the steps in the order recited. In addition, as
the majority recognizes (supra, page 5),
Appellant states that the reasons for dimensional errors in making
the . . . [structure set forth in embodiment 5] occur from (1) dimensional
errors in the resist film 50 formed by photolithography and (2)
dimensional errors in the oxide film 48 caused by side etching, which
etching would arise during the dry etching process (Specification p. 16, ll.
30 – p. 17, ll. 1-2).
Therefore, as I understand it, the majority recognizes (supra, pages 5-6) that
embodiment 5 of Appellant’s specification “supports the subject matter of claim 6,”
and provides an advantage of performing a wet etching step after a dry etching step.
Therefore, Appellant’s specification supports the construction of claim 6 requiring that
the wet etching step is performed after the dry etching step. The analysis does not end
there, as the prosecution history of this application also supports this construction of
claim 6.
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