CMP Defects; Their Detection and Analysis on Root Causes

Abstract

Particles and scratches are most wanted defects to be minimized in CMP processes. The root causes for them are mostly consumables related such as pad, slurry and diamond conditioning. The evaluation of additives in slurry is neglected in terms of their defect generation on wafer. The adhesion force can be measured between particle and wafer surface in given chemistry to select the additive which causes least particle contamination in both slurry and cleaning solutions. Also, the scratch detection and analysis are very time consuming and require advanced methodology even in wafer production facility. The lab scale scratch detection method was developed to study the effect of slurry and conditioning on wafer during CMP. In this presentation, we report the utilization of particle adhesion force on CMP process development and the detection of scratches on oxide wafer. The effect of slurry, pad and diamond conditioner on scratch formation was investigated with their classification