Effect of Process Parameters on Material Removal Rate in Chemical Mechanical Polishing of 6H-SiC(0001)

Abstract

2inch 6H-SiC (0001) wafers were sliced from the ingot grown by a conventional physical vapor transport (PVT) method using an abrasive multi-wire saw. While sliced SiC wafers lapped by a slurry with 1~9㎛ diamond particles had a mean height (Ra) value of 40nm, wafers after the final mechanical polishing using the slurry of 0.1㎛ diamond particles exhibited Ra of 4Å. In this study, we focused on investigation into the effect of the slurry type of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on the material removal rate of SiC materials and the change in surface roughness by adding abrasives and oxidizer to conventional KOH-based colloidal silica slurry. The nano-sized diamond slurry (average grain size of 25nm) added in KOH-based colloidal silica slurry resulted in a material removal rate (MRR) of 0.07mg/hr and the Ra of 1.811Å. The addition of oxidizer (NaOCl) in the nano-size diamond and KOH based colloidal silica slurry was proven to improve the CMP characteristics for SiC wafer, having a MRR of 0.3mg/hr and Ra of 1.087Å.