• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.67-70
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• 2024

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is an essential process for ensuring high integration when manufacturing semiconductor devices. CMP mainly requires the use of polyurethane-based polishing pads as an ultraprecise process to achieve mechanical material removal and the required chemical reactions. A diamond disk performs pad conditioning to remove processing residues on the pad surface and maintain sufficient surface roughness during CMP. However, the diamond grits attached to the disk cause uneven wear of the pad, leading to the poor uniformity of material removal during CMP. This study investigates the pad wear rate profile according to the swing motion of the conditioner during swing-arm-type CMP conditioning using deep learning. During conditioning, the motion of the swing arm is independently controlled in eight zones of the same pad radius. The experiment includes six swingmotion conditions to obtain actual data on the pad wear rate profile, and deep learning learns the pad wear rate profile obtained in the experiment. The absolute average error rate between the experimental values and learning results is 0.01%. This finding confirms that the experimental results can be well represented by learning. Pad wear rate profile prediction using the learning results reveals good agreement between the predicted and experimental values.

• 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.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.330-336
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• 2019

Conditioning is a process involving pad surface scraping by a moving metallic disk that is electrodeposited with diamond abrasives. It is an indispensable process in chemical-mechanical planarization, which regulates the pad roughness by removing the surface residues. Additionally, conditioning maintains the material removal rates and increases the pad lifetime. As the conditioning continues, the pad profile becomes unevenly to be deformed, which causes poor polishing quality. Simulation calculates the density at which the diamond abrasives on the conditioner scratch the unit area on the pad. It can predict the profile deformation through the control of conditioner dwell time. Previously, this effect of the diamond shape on conditioning has been investigated with regard to microscopic areas, such as surface roughness, rather than global pad-profile deformation. In this study, the effect of diamond shape on the pad profile is evaluated by comparing the simulated and experimental conditioning using two conditioners: a) random-shaped abrasive conditioner (RSC) and b) uniform-shaped abrasive conditioner (USC). Consequently, it is confirmed that the USC is incapable of controlling the pad profile, which is consistent with the simulation results.