• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10b
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• pp.435-437
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• 2002

Polishing of copper, a process called copper chemical mechanical polishing, is a critical, intermediate step in the planarization of silicon wafers. During polishing, the electrodeposited copper films are removed by slurries: and the differential polishing rates between copper and the surrounding silicon dioxide leads to a greater removal of the copper. The differential polishing develops dimples and furrows; and the process is called dishing and erosion. In this work, we present the results of experiments on dishing and erosion of copper-CMP, using patterned silicon wafers. Results are analyzed for the pattern factors and properties of the copper layers. Three types of pads - plain, perforated, and grooved - were used for polishing. The effect of slurry chemistries and pad soaking is also reported.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.616-621
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• 2010

New type of the base material of the light-emitting diode requires copper wafer in view of heat and electrical conductance. Therefore, polishing process of the substrate level is needed to get a nanometer level of surface roughness as compared with pattern structure of nano-size in the semiconductor industry. In this paper, a series of lapping and polishing technique is shown for the rough and deflected copper substrate of thickness 3mm. Lapping by sand papers tried air cooling method. And two steps of polishing used the diamond abrasives and the $Al_2O_3$ slurry of size 100mm considering the residual scratch. White-light interferometer proved successfully a mirror-like surface roughness of Ra 6nm on the area of $0.56mm{\times}0.42mm$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.410-410
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• 2012

The continuous monolayer graphene was synthesized on electro-polished copper foil. Electro-polishing sticks off the coating layer of copper foil, which prevents the continuous graphene growth. The quality of continuous graphene is dependent on roughness of copper foil. Copper foil roughness could be controlled by changing polishing condition. The effects of working voltage (4-6 V) and time (30-70 sec) for electro-polishing were systematically examined. The change of surface roughness was checked with AFM.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.82-82
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• 2007

The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been widely used to obtain global planarization of multilevel interconnection process for ultra large scale. integrated circuit applications. Especially, the application of copper CMP has become an integral part of several semiconductor device and materials manufacturers. However, the low-k materials at 65nm and below device structures because of fragile property, requires low down-pressure mechanical polishing for maintaining the structural integrity of under layer during their fabrication. In this paper, we studied electrochemical mechanical polishing (ECMP) as a new planarization technology that uses electrolyte chemistry instead of abrasive slurry for copper CMP process. The current-voltage (I-V) curves were employed we investigated that how this chemical affect the process of voltage induced material removal in ECMP of Copper. This work was supported by grant No. (R01-2006-000-11275-0) from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.63-70
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• 2002

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is the polishing process enabled by both chemical and mechanical actions. CMP is used in the fabrication process of the integrated circuits to achieve adequate planarity necessary for stringent photolithography depth of focus requirements. And recently copper is preferred in the metallization process because of its low resistivity. We have studied the effects of chemical reaction on the polishing rate and surface planarity in copper CMP by means of numerical simulation solving Navier-Stokes equation and copper diffusion equation. We have performed pore-scale simulation and integrated the results over all the pores underneath the wafer surface to calculate the macroscopic material removal rate. The mechanical abrasion effect was not included in our study and we concentrated our focus on the transport phenomena occurring in a single pore. We have observed the effects of several parameters such as concentration of chemical additives, relative velocity of the wafer, slurry film thickness or ash)tract ratio of the pore on the copper removal rate and the surface planarity. We observed that when the chemical reaction was rate-limiting step, the results of simulation matched well with the experimental data.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.15-20
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• 2007

Conditioner wear, copper polish rates, pad temperature and coefficient of friction (COF) are measured for two novel Mitsubishi Materials Corporation designs during an extended wear and polishing test. Both designs are coated with a $Teflon^{TM}$ film to reduce substrate wear and chemical attack. Using optical interferometry, changes in the coating that result in gradual changes in diamond exposure are measured. Theories of the COF, conditioning, and polishing are applied to explain the observed performance differences between the designs.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.122-123
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• 2002

Cu CMP process control for global planarization of semiconductor surface were studied on a platen polisher by using an experimental copper slurry containing ceria as the abrasive component. In order to understand the process. a design of experiment was conducted. From the experiment. the effects of polishing parameters such as polishing pressure, platen speed, and speed of wafer carrier on the removal rate of copper and the uniformity in copper removal were calculated and discussed. In this study, process parameters of Cu CMP and WIWNU(Within Wafer Non Uniformity) were presented.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10b
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• pp.441-442
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• 2002

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is a manufacturing process that uses controlled wear to planarize dielectric and metallic layers on silicon wafers. CMP experiments revealed that a sub-ambient film pressure developed at the wafer/pad interface. Additionally, dishing occurs in CMP processes when the copper-in-trench lines are removed at a rate higher than the barrier layer. In order to study dishing across a stationary wafer during polishing, dishing maps were created. Since dishing is a function of the total contact pressure resulting from the applied load and the fluid pressure, the hydrodynamic pressure model was refined and used in an existing model to study copper dishing. Density maps, highlighting varying levels of dishing across the wafer face at different radial positions, were developed. This work will present the results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.07a
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• pp.20-23
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• 2004

As the integrated circuit device shrinks to the smaller dimension, the chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) process was required for the global planarization of inter-metal dielectric(IMD) layer with free-defect. However, as the IMD layer gets thinner, micro-scratches are becoming as major defects. Chemical-Mechanical polishing(CMP) of conductors is a key process in Damascene patterning of advanced interconnect structure. The effect of alternative commercial slurries pads, and post-CMP cleaning alternatives are discuss, with removal rate, scratch dentisty, surface roughness, dishing, erosion and particulate density used as performance metrics. Electroplated copper deposition is a mature process from a historical point of view, but a very young process from a CMP perspective. While copper electro deposition has been used and studied for decades, its application to Cu damascene wafer processing is only now gaining complete acceptance in the semiconductor industry. The polishing mechanism of Cu-CMP process has been reported as the repeated process of passive layer formation by oxidizer and abrasion action by slurry abrasives. however it is important to understand the effect of oxidizer on copper passivation layer in order to obtain higher removal rate and non-uniformity during Cu-CMP process. In this paper, we investigated the effects of oxidizer on Cu-CMP process regarding the additional volume of oxidizer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.546-546
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• 2008

Copper (Cu) Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has been an essential process for Cu wifing of DRAM and NAND flash memory beyond 45nm. Copper has been employed as ideal material for interconnect and metal line due to the low resistivity and high resistant to electro-migration. Damascene process is currently used in conjunction with CMP in the fabrication of multi-level copper interconnects for advanced logic and memory devices. Cu CMP involves removal of material by the combination of chemical and mechanical action. Chemicals in slurry aid in material removal by modifying the surface film while abrasion between the particles, pad, and the modified film facilitates mechanical removal. In our research, we emphasized on the role of chemical effect of slurry on Cu CMP, especially on the effect of amine functional group on removal rate selectivity between Cu and Tantalum-nitride (TaN) film. We investigated the two different kinds of complexing agent both with amine functional group. On the one hand, Polyacrylamide as a polymer affected the stability of abrasive, viscosity of slurry and the corrosion current of copper film especially at high concentration. At higher concentration, the aggregation of abrasive particles was suppressed by the steric effect of PAM, thus showed higher fraction of small particle distribution. It also showed a fluctuation behavior of the viscosity of slurry at high shear rate due to transformation of polymer chain. Also, because of forming thick passivation layer on the surface of Cu film, the diffusion of oxidant to the Cu surface was inhibited; therefore, the corrosion current with 0.7wt% PAM was smaller than that without PAM. the polishing rate of Cu film slightly increased up to 0.3wt%, then decreased with increasing of PAM concentration. On the contrary, the polishing rate of TaN film was strongly suppressed and saturated with increasing of PAM concentration at 0.3wt%. We also studied the electrostatic interaction between abrasive particle and Cu/TaN film with different PAM concentration. On the other hand, amino-methyl-propanol (AMP) as a single molecule does not affect the stability, rheological and corrosion behavior of the slurry as the polymer PAM. The polishing behavior of TaN film and selectivity with AMP appeared the similar trend to the slurry with PAM. The polishing behavior of Cu film with AMP, however, was quite different with that of PAM. We assume this difference was originated from different compactness of surface passivation layer on the Cu film under the same concentration due to the different molecular weight of PAM and AMP.