• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10b
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• pp.433-434
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• 2002

Chemical mechanical polishing refers to a process by which silicon and partially-processed integrated circuits (IC's) built on silicon substrates are polished to produce planar surfaces for the continued manufacturing of IC's. Chemical mechanical polishing is done by pressing the silicon wafer, face down, onto a rotating platen that is covered by a rough polyurethane pad. During rotation, the pad is flooded with a slurry that contains nanoscale particles. The pad deforms and the roughness of the surface entrains the slurry into the interface. The asperities contact the wafer and the surface is polished in a three-body abrasion process. The contact of the wafer with the 'soft' pad produces a unique elastohydrodynamic situation in which a suction force is imposed at the interface. This added force is non-uniform and can be on the order of the applied pressure on the wafer. We have measured the magnitude and spatial distribution of this suction force. This force will be described within the context of a model of the sliding of hard surfaces on soft substrates.

• 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.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.719-722
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• 2004

In this work, we applied the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to the planarization of ferroelectric film. We compared the structural characteristics of BST $(Ba_{0.6}Sr_{0.4}TiO_3)$ films before and after the CMP process. Their dependence on slurry composition was also investigated. Finally, we suggest the self-developed titania $(TiO_2)$ mixed abrasive slurry (MAS) for FRAM applications. Our experimental results on the ferroelectric film are encouraging for the next generation of FRAM applications.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.465-470
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• 2003

The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been widely used for the global planarization of multi-layer structures in semiconductor manufacturing. The CMP process can be optimized by several parameters such as equipment, consumables (pad, backing film and slurry), process variables and post-CMP cleaning. However, the COO(cost of ownership) is very high, because of high consumable cost. Especially, among the consumables, the slurry dominates more than 40 %. In this paper, we have studied the CMP characteristics of diluted silica slurry by adding of raw alumina abrasives and annealed alumina abrasives. As an experimental result, we obtained the comparable slurry characteristics compared with original silica slurry in the view-point of high removal rate and low non-uniformity. Therefore, we can reduce the cost of consumables(COC) of CMP process for ULSI applications.

• 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$\AA$.

• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.3C no.1
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• pp.28-32
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• 2003

In this paper, we have studied the in-situ end point detection (EPD) for direct chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) of shallow trench isolation (STI) structures without the reverse moat etch process. In this case, we applied a high selectivity $1n (HSS) that improves the silicon oxide removal rate and maximizes oxide to nitride selectivity Quite reproducible EPD results were obtained, and the wafer-to-wafer thickness variation was significantly reduced compared with the conventional predetermined polishing time method without EPD. Therefore, it is possible to achieve a global planarization without the complicated reverse moat etch process. As a result, the STI-CMP process can be simplified and improved using the new EPD method.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.549-554
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• 2006

In this paper we first applied the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to the planarization of ferroelectric film in order to obtain a good planarity between electrode and ferroelectric film. $Pb_{1.1}(Zr_{0.52}Ti_{0.48})O_3$ (shortly PZT) ferroelectric film was fabricated by the sol-gel method. And then, we compared the structural characteristics before and after CMP process of PZT films. Removal rate, WIWNU% and surface roughness have been found to depend on slurry abrasive types and their hardness, especially, surface roughness and planarity were strongly depends on its pH value. A maximum in the removal rate is observed in the silica slurry, in contrast with the minimum removal rate occurs at ceria slurry. We found that the surface roughness of PZT films can be significantly reduced using the CMP technique.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.1117-1120
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• 2001

Chemical mechanical planarization(CMP) has emerged as the planarization technique of choice in both front-end and back-end integrated circuit manufacturing. Conventional CMP process utilize a polyurethane polishing pad and liquid chemical slurry containing abrasive particles. There have been serious problems in CMP in terms of repeatability and defects in patterned wafers. Since IBM's official announcement on Copper Dual Damascene(Cu2D) technology, the semiconductor world has been engaged in a Cu2D race. Today, even after~3years of extensive R&D work, the End-of-Line(EOL) yields are still too low to allow the transition of technology to manufacturing. One of the reasons behind this is the myriad of defects associated with Cu technology. Especially, dishing and erosion defects increase the resistance because they decrease the interconnection section area, and ultimately reduce the lifetime of the semiconductor. Methods to reduce dishing & erosion have recently been interface hardness of the pad, optimization of the pattern structure as dummy patterns. Dishing & erosion are initially generated an uneven pressure distribution in the materials. These defects are accelerated by free abrasive and chemical etching. Therefore, it is known that dishing & erosion can be reduced by minimizing the abrasive concentration. Minimizing the abrasive concentration by using Ce$O_2$ is the best solution for reducing dishing & erosion and for removal rate. This paper introduce dishing & erosion generating mechanism and a method for developing a semi-rigid abrasive pad to minimize dishing & erosion during CMP.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.208-212
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• 2021

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is a key technology used for the global planarization of thin films in semiconductor production and smoothing the surface of substrate materials. CMP is a type of hybrid process using a material removal mechanism that forms a chemically reacted layer on the surface of a material owing to chemical elements included in a slurry and mechanically removes the chemically reacted layer using abrasive particles. Sapphire is known as a material that requires considerable time to remove materials through CMP owing to its high hardness and chemical stability. This study introduces a technology using electrolytic ionization and ultraviolet (UV) light in sapphire CMP and compares it with the existing CMP method from the perspective of the material removal rate (MRR). The technology proposed in the study experimentally confirms that the MRR of sapphire CMP can be increased by approximately 29.9, which is judged as a result of the generation of hydroxyl radicals (·OH) in the slurry. In the future, studies from various perspectives, such as the material removal mechanism and surface chemical reaction analysis of CMP technology using electrolytic ionization and UV, are required, and a tribological approach is also required to understand the mechanical removal of chemically reacted layers.