• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.839-845
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• 2007

In this paper, a polishing pad has been analyzed in detail, to understand surface phenomena of polishing process. The polishing pad plays a key role in polishing process and is one of the important layer in polishing process, because it is a reaction layer of polishing[1]. Pad surface physical property is also ruled by pad profile. The profile and roughness of pad is controlled by different types of conditioning tool. Conditioning tool add mechanical force to pad, and make some roughness and profile. Formed pad surface will affect on polishing performance such as RR (Removal Rate) and uniformity in CMP Pad surface condition is changed by conditioning tool and dummy run and is stable at final. And this research, we want to reduce break-in and dummy polishing process by analysis of pad surface and artificial machining to make stable pad surface. The surface treatment or machining enables to control the surface of polishing pad. Therefore, this research intends to verify the effect of the buffing process on pad surface through analysis of the removal rate, friction force and temperature. In this research, urethane polishing pad which is named IC pad(Nitta-Haas Inc.) and has micro pore structure, is studied because, this type of pad is most conventional type.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.385-389
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• 2003

There are four main components of the CMP process: polishing pad, slurry, elastic supporter, and pad conditioner. The polishing pad is an essential component to the reproducibility of polishing uniformity in CMP process. However, the polishing pad in recently using metal CMP raised the several points of high cost caused by the increase of cycle time and the many usage of slurry. It is necessary to develop the novel polishing pad which would lead the cost reduction by the higher pad life-cycle, minimized cycle time and lower slurry usage. The characteristics of polishing pad were studied on the effects of different sets of the Polishing pad, which can be applied to metal chemical mechanical polishing process for global planarization of multilevel interconnection structure. The main purpose of this experiment is cost reduction by the increase of pad life-time, the decrease of cycle time and the lower usage of slurry through the specific hard porous structured pad design. It is confirmed that the novel polishing pad made the slurry usage decrease to 60% as well as the pad life-time increase twice with the 25% improvement of removal rate. The polishing time could be decreased and it also helped the cycle time to diminish. It can be expected that this results will help both the process throughput and the device yield to be improved.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.184-191
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• 2000

Properties of pad are investigated to find the relationship between the chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) results, such as material removal rate and within wafer non-uniformity(WIWNU), and its properties. Polishing pressure is considered as important factors to affect the results, so behavior of ordinary polymer is studied to define the polishing result affecting properties of pad. Experimental setup is devised to identify the behavior of pad and several different pads are used in chemical mechanical polishing experiments to verify the correlations between pad properties and polishing results. The results indicate that the viscoelastic properties of pad had relationships with the polishing results, and shows correlation between suggested properties of pad and polishing result.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.1027-1033
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• 2007

In this research, the polishing pad for W CMP has been analyzed to understand stabilization of polishing performance. For stabilization of process, the polishing pad condition is one of important factors. The polishing pad plays a key role in polishing process, because it contact with reacted surface of wafer[1]. The physical property of pad surface is ruled by conditioning tool which makes roughness and profile of pad surface. Pad surface affects on polishing performance such as RR(Removal Rate) and uniformity in CMP. The stabilized pad surface has stable roughness. And its surface has high level of wettability which can increase the probability of abrasive adhesion on pad. The result of this research is that the reduction of break-in and dummy polishing process were achieved by artificial machining to make stable pad surface. In this research, urethane polishing pad which is named IC pad(Nitta-Haas Inc.) and has micro pore structure, is studied. Because, this type of pad is the most conventional type.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.311-315
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• 2002

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process was required for the global planarization of inter-metal dielectric(IMD), inter-level dielectric (ILD) layers of multi-layer interconnections. In this paper, we studied the characteristics of polishing pad, which can apply shallow trench isolation (STI)-CMP process for global planarization of multi-level interconnection structure. Also, we investigated the effects of different sets of polishing pad, such as soft and hard pad. As an experimental result, hard pad showed center-fast type, and soft pad showed edge-fast type. Totally, the defect level has shown little difference, however, the counts of scratch was detected less than 2 on JR111 pad. Through the above results, we can select optimum polishing pad, so we can expect the improvements of throughput and device yield.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.178-181
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• 2002

We studied the characteristics of polishing pad, which can apply W CMP process for global planarization of multilevel interconnection structure. Also we investigated the effects of different sets of polishing pad. The purpose of this experiment is the cost reduction by the increase of pad life time and decrease of cycle time and slurry usage with new pad. Especially we studied the effect of polishing pad for CMP process by this experiment of polishing pad that is consumables material during CMP process. We expecting the increase of process throughput and improvement of device manufacturing yield because we can choose optimum polishing pad through this result.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2022

Chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process is a semiconductor process that planarizes a wafer surface using mechanical friction between a polishing pad and a substrate surface during a specific chemical reaction. During the CMP process, polishing pad conditioning is applied to prevent the rapid degradation of the polishing quality caused by polishing pad glazing through repeated material removal processes. However, during the conditioning process, uneven wear on the polishing pad is inevitable because the disk on which diamond particles are electrodeposited is used. Therefore, the abrasion of the polishing pad should be considered not only for the variables during the conditioning process but also when designing the CMP conditioning system. In this study, three design variables of the conditioning system were analyzed, and the effect on the pad wear profile during conditioning was investigated. The three design variables considered in this study were the length of the conditioner arm, diameter of the conditioner disk, and distance between centers. The Taguchi method was used for the experimental design. The effect of the three design variables on pad wear and uniformity was assessed, and new variables used in conditioning system design were proposed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.303-307
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• 2007

This paper investigated the effect of the pad buffing process on the material removal characteristics and pad stabilization during silicon chemical mechanical polishing. The pads surface were controlled by the buffing process using a buffer made by the sandpaper. The buffing process is based on abrasive machining by using a high speed sandpaper. The controlled pad by the buffing process show less deformation deviation and stable material removal rate during the CMP process. In addition, the controlled pad ensure better uniformity of removal rate than comparative pads. As a result of monitoring, the controlled pad by the buffing process demonstrated constant and stable friction force signals from initial polishing stage. Therefore, the tufting process could control the pad surface to be uniform and improve the performance of the polishing pad.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.32-37
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• 2004

Polishing processes are widely used in the glass, optical, die and semiconductor industries. Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) especially is becoming one of the most important ULSI processes for the 0.25m generation and beyond. CMP is conventionally carried out using abrasive slurry and a polishing pad. But the surface of the pad has irregular pores, so there is non-uniformity of slurry flow and of contact area between wafer and the pad, and glazing occurs on the surface of the pad. This paper introduces the basic concept and fabrication technique of the next generation CMP pad using micro-molding method to obtain uniform protrusions and pores on the pad surface.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.434-437
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• 2005

Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) has become an essential step in the overall semiconductor wafer fabrication technology. In general, CMP is a surface planarization method in which a silicon wafer is rotated against a polishing pad in the presence of slurry under pressure. The polishing pad, generally a polyurethane-based material, consists of polymeric foam cell walls, which aid in removal of the reaction products at the wafer interface. It has been found that the material removal rate of any polishing pad decreases due to the so-called 'pad glazing' after several wafer lots have been processed. Therefore, the pad restoration and conditioning has become essential in CMP processes to keep the urethane polishing pad at the proper friction coefficient and to allow effective slurry transport to the wafer surface. Diamond pad conditioner employs a single layer of brazed bonded diamond crystals. Due to the corrosive nature of the polishing slurry required in low pH metal CMP such as copper, it is essential to minimize the possibility of chemical interaction between very low pH slurry (pH <2) and the bond alloy. In this paper, we report an exceptional protective coated conditioner for in-situ pad conditioning in low pH Cu CMP process. The protective Cr-coated conditioner has been tested in slurry with pH levels as low as 1.5 without bond degradation.