Abstract
Chemical–mechanical polishing (CMP) is a process that planarizes semiconductor surfaces and is essential for the manufacture of highly integrated devices. In CMP, pad conditioning using a disk with diamond grit is adopted to maintain the surface roughness of the polishing pad and remove polishing debris. However, uneven pad wear by conditioning is unavoidable in CMP. In this study, we propose a contact-area-changeable conditioning system and utilize it to conduct a preliminary study for improving pad lifetime. Using the conventional conditioning method (Case I), the material removal rate (MRR) decreased rapidly after 12 h of conditioning and the within-wafer non-uniformity (WIWNU) increased. However, the results of conditioning experiments show that when using a contact-area-changeable conditioning system, uniform pad wear can be obtained in the wafer–pad contact area and the pad lifetime can be extended to more than 20 h. Finally, the newly proposed conditioning system in this study may improve the CMP pad lifetime.
Highlights
This study differs from the existing studies in that it demonstrates that using the contact-area-changeable chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) conditioning system can increase the life of polishing pads, it seems that additional research on contact area changes of diamond conditioners and experiments under more diverse conditioning process conditions will be needed
While previous studies on polishing pad profiles after pad conditioning have been In this study, we investigated contact-area-changeable swing-arm conditioning for Inthis this study,we weinvestigated investigated contact-area-changeable swing-arm conditioning for
This study differs from the existing adjustment ofprocess processparameters parameters but, rather, theimprovement improvement ofthe theconditioning conditioning sysadjustment ofof but, rather, the ofof sysstudies in that it demonstrates that using the contact-area-changeable CMP conditioning system can increase the life of polishing pads, it seems that additional research on contact area changes of diamond conditioners and experiments under more diverse conditioning process conditions will be needed
Summary
Is becoming more important as the integration of semiconductor devices increases [1,2,3,4,5]. They explained that thethe difference between experimental result andand simsimulation maycome comefrom fromthe themoment moment that that the friction forces ulation may forces act acton onthe theconditioner conditionerdisk They calculated the pad showed that the swing-arm velocity profile (SAVP) affected the pad profile. Chen et al [39] proposed a surface metrology monitoring method by using a chromatic confocal sensor They showed that the pad non-uniformity (PU) was related to pad effective lifetime index (PELI). Proposed a surface metrology monitoring method by using a chromatic confocal sensor Previous studies involving pad wear profiles in swing-arm conditioning attempt to byby adjusting thethe swing speed (or (or duration improve the the uniformity uniformityof ofthe thepolishing polishingpad padwear wear adjusting swing speed duratime)time) of the and and the conditioner design.
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