• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.152-161
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• 2022

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is a technology that planarizes the surfaces of semiconductor devices using chemical reaction and mechanical material removal, and it is an essential process in manufacturing highly integrated semiconductors. In the CMP process, a conditioning process using a diamond conditioner is applied to remove by-products generated during processing and ensure the surface roughness of the CMP pad. In previous studies, prediction of pad wear by CMP conditioning has depended on numerical analysis studies based on mathematical simulation. In this study, using an artificial neural network, the ratio of conditioner coverage to the distance between centers in the conditioning system is input, and the average conditioning density, standard deviation, nonuniformity (NU), and conditioning density distribution are trained as targets. The result of training seems to predict the target data well, although the average conditioning density, standard deviation, and NU in the contact area of wafer and pad and all areas of the pad have some errors. In addition, in the case of NU, the prediction calculated from the training results of the average conditioning density and standard deviation can reduce the error of training compared with the results predicted through training. The results of training on the conditioning density profile generally follow the target data well, confirming that the shape of the conditioning density profile can be predicted.