• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.38 no.8
• /
• pp.863-867
• /
• 2014

In this study, an acoustic emission (AE) sensor was used for measuring the abrasive and molecular-scale phenomena in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). An AE sensor is a transducer that converts a mechanical wave into an electrical signal, and is capable of acquiring high-level frequencies from materials. Therefore, an AE sensor was installed in the CMP equipment and the signals were measured simultaneously during the polishing process. In this study, an AE monitoring system was developed for investigating the sensitivity of the AE signal to (a) the variations in the material properties of the pad, slurry, and wafer and (b) the change in conditions during the CMP process. This system was adapted to Oxide and Cu CMP processes. AE signal parameters including AE raw frequency, FFT, and amplitude were analyzed for understanding the abrasive and molecular-level phenomena in the CMP process. Finally, we verified that AE sensors with different bandwidths could function in complementary ways during CMP process monitoring.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2003.07a
• /
• pp.50-53
• /
• 2003

CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) process remained to solve several problems in deep sub-micron integrated circuit manufacturing process. especially consumables (polishing pad, backing film, slurry, pad conditioner), one of the most important components in the CMP system is the slurry. Among the composition of slurries (buffer solution, bulk solution, abrasive particle, oxidizer, inhibitor, suspension, antifoaming agent, dispersion agent), the abrasive particles are important in determining polish rate and planarization ability of a CMP process. However, the cost of abrasives is still very high. So, in order to reduce the high COO (cost of ownership) and COC (cost of consumables) in this paper, we have collected the silica abrasive powders by filtering after subsequent CMP process for the purpose of abrasive particle recycling. And then, we have studied the possibility of recycle of reused silica abrasive through the analysis of particle size and hardness. Also, we annealed the collected abrasive powders to promote the mechanical strength of reduced abrasion force. Finally, we compared the CMP characteristics between self-developed KOH-based silica abrasive slurry and original slurry. As our experimental results, we obtained the comparable removal rate and good planarity with commercial products. Consequently, we can expect the saving of high cost slurry.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2003.05c
• /
• pp.41-44
• /
• 2003

As the device feature size is reduced to the deep sub-micron regime, the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) technology is widely recognized as the most promising method to achieve the global planarization of the multilevel interconnection for ULSI applications. However, cost of ownership (COO) and cost of consumables (COC) were relatively increased because of expensive slurry. In this paper, the effects of different slurry composition on the oxide CMP characteristics were investigated to obtain the higher removal rate and lower non-uniformity. We prepared the various kinds of slurry. In order to save the costs of slurry, the original slurry was diluted by de-ionized water (DIW). And then, alunima abrasives were added in the diluted slurry in order to promote the mechanical force of diluted slurry.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2009.06a
• /
• pp.95-96
• /
• 2009

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.79-83
• /
• 2007

The implications of a theory of lubricated pad asperity wafer contact are traced through several fundamental areas of chemical-mechanical polishing. The hypothesized existence of a nanolubrication layer underlies a high accuracy model of polish rates. It also provides a quantitative explanation of a power law relationship between the coefficient of friction and a measure of pad surface flattening. The theory may further be useful for interpreting friction changes during polishing, and may explain why the coefficient of friction is sometimes observed to have a temperature or velocity dependence.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.53 no.4
• /
• pp.517-523
• /
• 2015

As the aluminum (Al) metallization process was replaced with copper (Cu), the damascene process was introduced, which required the planarization step to eliminate over-deposited Cu with Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) process. In this study, the verification of the corrosion inhibitors, one of the Cu CMP slurry components, was conducted to find out the tendency regarding the carboxyl and amino functional group in neutral environment. Through the results of etch rate, removal rate, and chemical ability of corrosion inhibitors based on 1H-1,2,4-triazole as the base-corrosion inhibitor, while the amine functional group presents high Cu etching ability, carboxyl functional group shows lower Cu etching ability than base-corrosion inhibitor which means that it increases passivation effect by making strong passivation layer. It implies that the corrosion inhibitor with amine functional group was proper to apply for 1st Cu CMP slurry owing to the high etch rate and with carboxyl functional group was favorable for the 2nd Cu CMP slurry due to the high Cu removal rate/dissolution rate ratio.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
• /
• 2002.10b
• /
• pp.435-437
• /
• 2002

Polishing of copper, a process called copper chemical mechanical polishing, is a critical, intermediate step in the planarization of silicon wafers. During polishing, the electrodeposited copper films are removed by slurries: and the differential polishing rates between copper and the surrounding silicon dioxide leads to a greater removal of the copper. The differential polishing develops dimples and furrows; and the process is called dishing and erosion. In this work, we present the results of experiments on dishing and erosion of copper-CMP, using patterned silicon wafers. Results are analyzed for the pattern factors and properties of the copper layers. Three types of pads - plain, perforated, and grooved - were used for polishing. The effect of slurry chemistries and pad soaking is also reported.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.11-14
• /
• 2007

Consumables used in Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) have been played important role to improve quality and productivity. Since the properties of consumables constantly change with various reasons, such as shelf time, manufactured time, lot to lot variation from supplier and so on, CMP results are not constant during the process. Also, CMP process results are affected by multiple sources from wafer, conditioner, pad and slurry. Therefore, multiple sensing systems are required to monitor CMP process variation. In this paper, the authors focus on development of monitoring system for CMP process which consist of force, temperature and displacement sensor to measure the signal from CMP process. With monitoring systems mentioned above, complex CMP phenomena can be investigated more clearly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2008.06a
• /
• pp.546-546
• /
• 2008

Copper (Cu) Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has been an essential process for Cu wifing of DRAM and NAND flash memory beyond 45nm. Copper has been employed as ideal material for interconnect and metal line due to the low resistivity and high resistant to electro-migration. Damascene process is currently used in conjunction with CMP in the fabrication of multi-level copper interconnects for advanced logic and memory devices. Cu CMP involves removal of material by the combination of chemical and mechanical action. Chemicals in slurry aid in material removal by modifying the surface film while abrasion between the particles, pad, and the modified film facilitates mechanical removal. In our research, we emphasized on the role of chemical effect of slurry on Cu CMP, especially on the effect of amine functional group on removal rate selectivity between Cu and Tantalum-nitride (TaN) film. We investigated the two different kinds of complexing agent both with amine functional group. On the one hand, Polyacrylamide as a polymer affected the stability of abrasive, viscosity of slurry and the corrosion current of copper film especially at high concentration. At higher concentration, the aggregation of abrasive particles was suppressed by the steric effect of PAM, thus showed higher fraction of small particle distribution. It also showed a fluctuation behavior of the viscosity of slurry at high shear rate due to transformation of polymer chain. Also, because of forming thick passivation layer on the surface of Cu film, the diffusion of oxidant to the Cu surface was inhibited; therefore, the corrosion current with 0.7wt% PAM was smaller than that without PAM. the polishing rate of Cu film slightly increased up to 0.3wt%, then decreased with increasing of PAM concentration. On the contrary, the polishing rate of TaN film was strongly suppressed and saturated with increasing of PAM concentration at 0.3wt%. We also studied the electrostatic interaction between abrasive particle and Cu/TaN film with different PAM concentration. On the other hand, amino-methyl-propanol (AMP) as a single molecule does not affect the stability, rheological and corrosion behavior of the slurry as the polymer PAM. The polishing behavior of TaN film and selectivity with AMP appeared the similar trend to the slurry with PAM. The polishing behavior of Cu film with AMP, however, was quite different with that of PAM. We assume this difference was originated from different compactness of surface passivation layer on the Cu film under the same concentration due to the different molecular weight of PAM and AMP.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2006.06a
• /
• pp.565-566
• /
• 2006

Slurry used in metal chemical mechanical polishing normally consists of an oxidizer, a complexing agent, a corrosion inhibitor and an abrasive. This paper investigates effects of citric acid as a complexing agent for Cu CMP with $H_2O_2$ as an oxidizer. In order to study chemical effects of a citric acid, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were performed on Cu sample after Cu etching test. XPS results reveal that CuO, $Cu(OH)_2$ layer decrease but Cu/$Cu_2O$ layer increase on Cu sample surface. To investigate nanomechanical properties of Cu sample surface, nanoindentation was performed on Cu sample. Results of nanoindentation indicate wear resistance of Cu Surface decrease. According to decrease of wear resistance on Cu surface, removal rate increases from $285\;{\AA}/min$ to $8645\;{\AA}/min$ in Cu CMP.