Effect of Slurry Characteristics on Nanotopography Impact in Chemical Mechanical Polishing and Its Numerical Simulation

기계.화학적인 연마에서 슬러리의 특성에 따른 나노토포그래피의 영향과 numerical시뮬레이션

The nanotopography of silicon wafers has emerged as an important factor in the STI process since it affects the post-CMP thickness deviation (OTD) of dielectric films. Ceria slurry with surfactant is widely applied to STI-CMP as it offers high oxide-to-nitride removal selectivity. Aiming to control the nanotopography impact through ceria slurry characteristics, we examhed the effect of surfactant concentration and abrasive size on the nanotopography impact. The ceria slurries for this study were produced with cerium carbonate as the starting material. Four kinds of slurry with different size of abrasives were prepared through a mechanical treatment The averaged abrasive size for each slurry varied from 70 nm to 290 nm. An anionic organic surfactant was added with the concentration from 0 to 0.8 wt %. We prepared commercial 8 inch silicon wafers. Oxide Shu were deposited using the plasma-enhanced tetra-ethyl-ortho-silicate (PETEOS) method, The films on wafers were polished on a Strasbaugh 6EC. Film thickness before and after CMP was measured with a spectroscopic ellipsometer, ES4G (SOPRA). The nanotopogrphy height of the wafer was measured with an optical interferometer, NanoMapper (ADE Phase Shift)