• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.66-66
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• 2007

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is one of the most attractive perovskite-type materials for ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) due to its higher remanant polarization and the ability to withstand higher coercive fields. We first applied the damascene process using chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) to fabricate the PZT thin film capacitor to solve the problems of plasma etching including low etching profile and ion charging. The $0.8{\times}0.8\;{\mu}m$ square patterns of silicon dioxide on Pt/Ti/$SiO_2$/Si substrate were coated by sol-gel method with the precursor solution of PZT. Damascene process by CMP was performed to pattern the PZT thin film with the vertical sidewall and no plasma damage. The polarization-voltage (P-V) characteristics of PZT capacitors and the current-voltage characteristics (I-V) were examined by change of process parameters. To examine the CMP induced damage to PZT capacitor, the domain structure of the polished PZT thin film was also investigated by piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM).

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.07a
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• pp.252-255
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• 2004

반도체는 high integrated, high speed, low power를 위하여 design 뿐만 아니라 재료 측면에서도 많은 변화를 가져오고 있으며, RC delay time을 줄이기 위하여 Al 배선보다 비저항이 낮은 Cu와 low-k material 적용이 그 대표적인 예이다. 그러나, Cu 배선의 경우 dry etching이 어려우므로, 기존의 공정으로는 그 한계를 가지므로 damascene 또는 dual damascene 공정이 소개, 적용되고 있다. Damascene 공정은 절연막에 photo와 RIE 공정을 이용하여 trench를 형성시킨 후 electrochemical plating 공정을 이용하여 trench에 Cu를 filling 시킨다. 이후 CMP 공정을 이용하여 절연막 위의 Cu와 barrier material을 제거함으로서 Cu 배선을 형성하게 된다. Dual damascene 공정은 trench와 via를 동시에 형성시키는 기술로 현재 대부분의 Cu 배선 공정에 적용되고 있다. Cu CMP는 기존의 metal CMP와 마찬가지로 oxidizer를 이용한 Cu film의 화학반응과 연마 입자의 기계가공이 기본 메커니즘이다. Cu CMP에서 backside pressure 영향이 uniformity에 미치는 영향을 살펴보았으며, electrochemical plating 공정에서 발생하는 hump가 CMP 결과에 미치는 영향과 dishing 결과를 통하여 그 영향을 평가하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.79-80
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• 2007

Copper has been used as an interconnect material in the fabrication of semiconductor devices, because of its higher electrical conductivity and superior electro-migration resistance. Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) technique is required to planarize the overburden Cu film in an interconnect process. Various problems such as dishing, erosion, and delamination are caused by the high pressure and chemical effects in the Cu CMP process. But these problems have to be solved for the fabrication of the next generation semiconductor devices. Therefore, new process which is electro-chemical mechanical planarization/polishing (ECMP) or electro-chemical mechanical planarization was introduced to solve the. technical difficulties and problems in CMP process. In the ECMP process, Cu ions are dissolved electrochemically by the applying an anodic potential energy on the Cu surface in an electrolyte. And then, Cu complex layer are mechanically removed by the mechanical effects between pad and abrasive. This paper focuses on the manufacturing of ECMP system and its process. ECMP equipment which has better performance and stability was manufactured for the planarization process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.58-58
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• 2009

Uniformity related issues in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) are within wafer non-uniformity (WIWNU), wafer to wafer non-uniformity (WTWNU), planarity and dishing/erosion. Here, the WIWNU that originates from spatial distribution of independent variables such as temperature, sliding distance, down force and material removal rate (MRR) during CMP, relies to spatial dependency. Among various sources of spatial irregularity, hardness and modulus of pad and surface roughness in sources for pad uniformity are great, especially. So, we investigated the spatial variation of pad surface characteristics using pad measuring system (PMS) and roughness measuring system. Reduced peak height ($R_{pk}$) of roughness parameter shows a strong correlation with the removal rate, and the distribution of relative sliding distance onwafer during polishing has an effect on the variation of $R_{pk}$ and WIWNU. Also, the results of pad wear profile thorough developed pad profiler well coincides with the kinematical simulation of conditioning, and it can contribute for the enhancement of WIWNU in CMP process.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.79-85
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• 2015

RC delay is a critical issue for achieving high performance of ULSI devices. In order to minimize the RC delay time, we uses the CMP process to introduce high-conductivity Cu and low-k materials on the damascene. The low-k materials are generally soft and fragile, resulting in structure collapse during the conventional high-pressure CMP process. One troubleshooting method is electrochemical mechanical polishing (ECMP) which has the advantages of high removal rate, and low polishing pressure, resulting in a well-polished surface because of high removal rate, low polishing pressure, and well-polished surface, due to the electrochemical acceleration of the copper dissolution. This study analyzes an electrochemical state (active, passive, transpassive state) on a potentiodynamic curve using a three-electrode cell consisting of a working electrode (WE), counter electrode (CE), and reference electrode (RE) in a potentiostat to verify an electrochemical removal mechanism. This study also tries to find optimum conditions for ECMP through experimentation. Furthermore, during the low-pressure ECMP process, we investigate the effect of current density on surface roughness and removal rate through anodic oxidation, dissolution, and reaction with a chelating agent. In addition, according to the Faraday’s law, as the current density increases, the amount of oxidized and dissolved copper increases. Finally, we confirm that the surface roughness improves with polishing time, and the current decreases in this process.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1175-1180
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• 2022

STI has been studied a lot as a process technology for wide area planarization according to miniaturization and high integration of semiconductor devices. In this study, as methods for improving the STI profile, wet etching of pad oxide using hydrofluorine solution and dry etching of O₂+CF₄ after STI dry etching were proposed. This process technology showed improvement in profile imbalance and leakage current between patterns according to device density compared to the conventional method. In addition, as a result of measuring the HLD thickness after CMP for a device having the same STI depth and HLD deposition, the measured value was different depending on the device density. It was confirmed that this was due to the difference in the thickness of the nitride film according to the device density after CMP and the selectivity of the slurry.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.622-627
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• 2013

Colloidal silica is used in various industrial products such as chemical mechanical polishing slurry for planarization of silicon and sapphire wafer, organic-inorganic hybrid coatings, binder of investment casting, etc. An accurate determination of particle size and dispersion stability of silica sol is demanded because it has a strong influence on surface of wafer, film of coatings or bulks having mechanical, chemical and optical properties. The study herein is discussed on the effect of measurement results of average particle size, sol viscosity and electrophoretic mobility of particle according to the volume fraction of eight types of silica sol with different size and surface properties of silica particles which are presented by the manufacturer. The measured particle size and the mobility of these sol were changed by volume fraction or particle size due to highly active surface of silica particle and change of concentration of counter ion by dilution of silica sol. While in case the measured sizes of small particles less than 60 nm are increased with increasing volume fraction, the measured sizes of larger particles than 60 nm are slightly decreased. The mobility of small particle such as 12 nm are decreased with increase of viscosity. However, the mobility of 100 nm particles under 0.048 volume fraction are increased with increasing volume fraction and then decreased over higher volume fraction.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.236-236
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• 2008

(Bi,La)$Ti_3O_{12}$(BLT) thin film is one of the most attractive materials for ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) applications due to its some excellent properties such as high fatigue endurance, low processing temperature, and large remanent polarization [1-2]. The authors firstly investigated and reported the damascene process of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) for BLT thin film capacitor on behalf of plasma etching process for fabrication of FRAM [3]. CMP process could prepare the BLT capacitors with the superior process efficiency to the plasma etching process without the well-known problems such as plasma damages and sloped sidewall, which was enough to apply to the fabrication of FRAM [2]. BLT-CMP characteristics showed the typical oxide-CMP characteristics which were related in both pressure and velocity according to Preston's equation and Hernandez's power law [2-4]. Good surface roughness was also obtained for the densification of multilevel memory structure by CMP process [3]. The well prepared BLT capacitors fabricated by CMP process should have the sufficient ferroelectric properties for FRAM; therefore, in this study the electrical properties of the BLT capacitor fabricated by CMP process were analyzed with the process parameters. Especially, the effects of CMP pressure, which had mainly affected the removal rate of BLT thin films [2], on the electrical properties were investigated. In order to check the influences of the pressure in eMP process on the ferroelectric properties of BLT thin films, the electrical test of the BLT capacitors was performed. The polarization-voltage (P-V) characteristics show a decreased the remanent polarization (Pr) value when CMP process was performed with the high pressure. The shape of the hysteresis loop is close to typical loop of BLT thin films in case of the specimen after CMP process with the pressures of 4.9 kPa; however, the shape of the hysteresis loop is not saturated due to high leakage current caused by structural and/or chemical damages in case of the specimen after CMP process with the pressures of 29.4 kPa. The leakage current density obtained with positive bias is one order lower than that with negative bias in case of 29.4 kPa, which was one or two order higher than in case of 4.9 kPa. The high pressure condition was not suitable for the damascene process of BLT thin films due to the defects in electrical properties although the better efficiency of process. by higher removal rate of BLT thin films was obtained with the high pressure of 29.4 kPa in the previous study [2].

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.375-375
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• 2010

CdTe as an absorber material is widely used in thin film solar cells with the heterostructure due to its almost ideal band gap energy of 1.45 eV, high photovoltaic conversion efficiency, low cost and stable performance. The deposition methods and preparation conditions for the fabrication of CdTe are very important for the achievement of high solar cell conversion efficiency. There are some rearranged reports about the deposition methods available for the preparation of CdTe thin films such as close spaced sublimation (CSS), physical vapor deposition (PVD), vacuum evaporation, vapor transport deposition (VTD), closed space vapor transport, electrodeposition, screen printing, spray pyrolysis, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and RF sputtering. The RF sputtering method for the preparation of CdTe thin films has important advantages in that the thin films can be prepared at low growth temperatures with large-area deposition suitable for mass-production. The authors reported that the optical and electrical properties of CdTe thin film were closely connected by the thickness-uniformity of the film in the previous study [1], which means that the better optical absorbance and the higher carrier concentration could be obtained in the better condition of thickness-uniformity for CdTe thin film. The thickness-uniformity could be controlled and improved by the some process parameters such as vacuum level and RF power in the sputtering process of CdTe thin films. However, there is a limitation to improve the thickness-uniformity only in the preparation process [1]. So it is necessary to introduce the external or additional method for improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film because the cell size of thin film solar cell will be enlarged. Therefore, the authors firstly applied the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin films with a G&P POLI-450 CMP polisher [2]. CMP process is the most important process in semiconductor manufacturing processes in order to planarize the surface of the wafer even over 300 mm and to form the copper interconnects with damascene process. Some important CMP characteristics for CdTe were obtained including removal rate (RR), WIWNU%, RMS roughness, and peak-to-valley roughness [2]. With these important results, the CMP process for CdTe thin films was performed to improve the thickness-uniformity of the sputtering-deposited CdTe thin film which had the worst two thickness-uniformities of them. Some optical properties including optical transmittance and absorbance of the CdTe thin films were measured by using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer (Varian Techtron, Cary500scan) in the range of 400 - 800 nm. After CMP process, the thickness-uniformities became better than that of the best condition in the previous sputtering process of CdTe thin films. Consequently, the optical properties were directly affected by the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film. The absorbance of CdTe thin films was improved although the thickness of CdTe thin film was not changed.