Statistical Qualitative Analysis on Chemical Mechanical Polishing Process and Equipment Characterization

The characterization of the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process for undensified phophosilicate glass (PSG) film is reported using design of experiments (DOE). DOE has been used by experimenters to understand the relationship between the input variables and responses of interest in a simple and efficient way, and it typically is beneficial for determining the appropriatesize of experiments with multiple process variables and making statistical inferences for the responses of interest. The equipment controllable parameters used to operate the machine consist of the down force of the wafer carrier, pressure on the back side wafer, table and spindle speeds (SS), slurry flow (SF) rate, pad condition, etc. None of these are independent ofeach other and, thus, the interaction between the parameters also needs to be understoodfor improved process characterization in CMP. In this study, we selected the five controllable equipment parameters the most recommendedby process engineers, viz. the down force (DF), back pressure (BP), table speed (TS), SS, and SF, for the characterization of the CMP process with respect to the material removal rate and film uniformity in percentage terms. The polished material is undensified PSG which is widely used for the plananization of multi-layered metal interconnects. By statistical modeling and the analysis of the metrology data acquired from a series of $2^{5-1}$ fractional factorial designs with two center points, we showed that the DF, BP and TS have the greatest effect on both the removal rate and film uniformity, as expected. It is revealed that the film uniformity of the polished PSG film contains two and three-way interactions. Therefore, one can easily infer that process control based on a better understanding of the process is the key to success in current semiconductor manufacturing, in which the size of the wafer is approaching 300 mm and is scheduled to continuously increase up to 450 mm in or slightly after 2012.