• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.91-97
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• 2018

Chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) realizes a surface planarity through combined mechanical and chemical means. In CMP process, Preston equation is known as one of the most general approximation of the removal rate. Effects of pressure and relative speed on the mechanical property of Cu CMP has been investigated. On the other hand, The amount of abrasion also increased with changes in pressure and speed, resulting in a proportional increase of temperature during CMP. Especially this temperature is an important factor to change chemical reaction in a Cu CMP. However, when the slurry temperature became higher than $70^{\circ}C$, the removal rate went lower due to abrasives aggregation and scratching occurred on the Cu film. Therefore, it was found that the slurry temperature should not exceed $70^{\circ}C$ during Cu CMP. Finally, authors could increase the pressure, speed and slurry temperature up to a ceratin level to improve the removal rate without surface defects.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2014

A colloidal silica slurry has been manufactured by mixing nano silica powders having different grain size to improve the reliability of Sapphire wafer CMP process. The main reliability problem of CMP process such as the breaking of wafer can be prevented by reducing the size of particles in a slurry. While existing commercial colloidal silica slurries are usually made of single grain size silica powder of about 120nm, in the present study 40nm and 100nm silica powders are mixed to achieve a similar removal rate. The new colloidal silica slurry showed wafer removal rate of $3.04{\mu}m/120min$ while that of a commercial colloidal silica slurry was $3.03{\mu}m/120min$. The roughness was less than $4{\AA}$ and scratch was 0. It is also expected that the reduction of the size of nano silica particles can improve the dispersion stability and prolong the useful life of the slurry.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.5-9
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• 2002

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has become the preferred planarization method for multilevel interconnect technology due to its ability to achieve a high degree of feature level planarity. Especially, to achieve the higher density and greater performance, shallow trench isolation (STI)-CMP process has been attracted attention for multilevel interconnection as an essential isolation technology. Also, it was possible to apply the direct STI-CMP process without reverse moat etch step using high selectivity slurry (HSS). In this work, we determined the process margin with optimized process conditions to apply HSS STI-CMP process. Then, we evaluated the reliability and reproducibility of STI-CMP process through the optimal process conditions. The wafer-to-wafer thickness variation and day-by-day reproducibility of STI-CMP process after repeatable tests were investigated. Our experimental results show, quite acceptable and reproducible CMP results with a wafer-to-wafer thickness variation within 400$\AA$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.175-184
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• 2001

In this study, the improved throughput and stability in device fabrication could be obtained by applying CMP process to STi structue in 0.18 um semiconductor device. To employ the CMP process in STI structure, the Reverse Moat Process used to be added after STI Fill, as a result, the process became more complex and the defect were seriously increased than they had been,. Removal rate of each thin film in STI CMP was not uniform, so, the device must have been affected. That is, in case of excessive CMP, the damage on the active area was occurred, and in the case of insufficient CMP nitride remaining was happened on that area. Both of them deteriorated device characteristics. As a solution to these problems, the development of slurry having high removal rate and high oxide to nitride selectivity has been studied. The process using this slurry afford low defect levels, improved yield, and a simplified process flow. In this study, we evaluated the 'High Selectivity Slurry' to do a global planarization without reverse moat step, and also we evaluated EPD(Eend Point Detection) system with which 'in-situ end point detection' is possible.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.366-367
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• 2006

In general, HF chemistry lifts off the particles during scrubbing after polishing and effectively removes particles. It is sometimes impossible to apply HF chemistry on W plug due to the degradation of electrical characteristics of a device. In this paper, a post W CMP cleaning process is proposed to remove residue particles without applying HF chemistry. After W CMP, recessed plugs are created, therefore they easily trap slurry particles during CMP process. These particles in recessed plug are not easy to remove by brush scrubbing when $NH_4OH$ chemistry is used for the cleaning because the brush surface can not reach the recessed area of plugs. Buffing with oxide slurry was followed by W CMP due to its high selectivity to W. The buffing polishes only oxide slightly which creates higher plug profiles than surrounding oxide. Higher profiles make the brush contact much more effectively and result in a similar particle removal efficiency even in $NH_4OH$ cleaning to that in HF brush scrubbing.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.1535-1540
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• 2001

This study presents the possibility of scratch reduction on wafer in CMP by applying the ultrasonic and megasonic energy into the slurry which might contain large abrasive particles. Experiments were conducted to verify the dispersion ability of agglomerated particles by applying ultrasonic, megasonic waves and analyze the particle distribution of used slurry in case, of sonic energy assisted or none. And the dispersion stability of megasonic waves was investigated through the experiment of stability of the dispersed slurry, Finally, to confirm that the distribution of particles in slurry by ultrasonic waves was actually related to scratches on wafer when CMP was done, tungsten blanket wafer was processed, by CMP to compare and investigate scratches on wafer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.372-373
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• 2006

Chemical kinetics affects Cu CMP results (removal rate, Non uniformity etc.) Because Cu is removed by chemical action. Key factors in chemical kinetics are process temperature and concentration of slurry components. In this study, Hydrogen peroxide and citric acid were selected as a oxidant and a complexing agent and Slurry were made by mixing this components. In order to study effects of Chemical Kinetics, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were performed on Cu sample after etching test as concentration of citric acid and slurry temperature. Finally Cu CMP was performed as same conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04b
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• pp.89-92
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• 2004

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been widely used to planarize dielectric layers, which can be applied to the integrated circuits for sub-micron technology. Despite the increased use of CMP process, it is difficult to accomplish the global planarization of in the defect-free inter-level dielectrics (ILD). we investigated the performance of $WO_3$ CMP used silica slurry, ceria slurry, tungsten slurry. In this paper, the effects of addition oxidizer on the $WO_3$ CMP characteristics were investigated to obtain the higher removal rate and lower non-uniformity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04b
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• pp.34-37
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• 2004

Recently advancing mobile communication tools and I.T industry, semiconductor device is requested more integrated, faster operation time and more scaled-down. Because of these reasons semiconductor device is requested multilayer interconnection. For the multilayer interconnection chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) becomes one of the most useful process in semiconductor manufacturing process. In this experiment, we focus on understand the characterize and improve the CMP technology by control of slurry flow rate. Consequently, we obtain that optimal flow rate of slurry is 170ml/min, since optimal conditions are less chemical flow and performance high with good selectivity to Ta. If we apply this results to copper CMP process. it is thought that we will be able to obtain better yield.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.46-52
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• 2004

CMP (Chemical-Mechanical Polishing) is a process in which both chemical and mechanical mechanisms act simultaneously to produce the planarized wafer. CMP process is an extensive usage and continuing high growth rates in the semiconductor industry. The understanding of the process, however, is much slower. The nature of material removal from the wafer is still undefined and ambiguous. Material removal rate according to the slurry flow rate is also undefined and ambiguous. Thus, in this study, the basic mechanism of material removal rate as slurry flow rate is defined in terms of energy supply and energy loss.