• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.378-383
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• 2004

Tungsten is widely used as a plug for the multi-level interconnection structures. However, due to the poor adhesive properties of tungsten(W) on SiO$_2$ layer, the Ti/TiN barrier layer is usually deposited onto SiO$_2$ for increasing adhesion ability with W film. Generally, for the W-CMP(chemical mechanical polishing) process, the passivation layer on the tungsten surface during CMP plays an important role. In this paper, the effect of oxidant on the polishing selectivity of W/Ti/TiN layer was investigated. The alumina(A1$_2$O$_3$)-based slurry with $H_2O$$_2$ as the oxidizer was used for CMP applications. As an experimental result, for the case of 5 wt％ oxidizer added, the removal rates were improved and polishing selectivity of 1.4:1 was obtained. It was also found that the CMP characteristics of W and Ti metal layer including surface roughness were strongly dependent on the amounts of $H_2O$$_2$ oxidizer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 한국전기전자재료학회 2008년도 하계학술대회 논문집 Vol.9
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• pp.546-546
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• 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
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• 한국전기전자재료학회 2000년도 춘계학술대회 논문집 전자세라믹스 센서 및 박막재료 반도체재료 일렉트렛트 및 응용기술
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• pp.31-34
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• 2000

It is very important to understand the correlation of between inter layer dielectric(ILD) CMP process and various facility factors supplied to equipment system. In this paper, the correlation between the various facility factors supplied to CMP equipment system and ILD CMP process were studied. To prevent the partial over-polishing(edge hot-spot) generated in the wafer edge area during polishing, we analyzed various facilities supplied at supply system. With facility shortage of D.I. water(DIW) pressure, we introduced an adding purified $N_2(PN_2)$ gas in polishing head cleaning station for increasing a cleaning effect. DIW pressure and PN2 gas factors were not related with removal rate, but edge hot-spot of patterned wafer had a serious relation. We estimated two factors (DIW pressure and PN2 gas) for the improvement of CMP process. Especially, we obtained a uniform planarity in patterned wafer and prohibited more than 90% wafer edge over-polishing. In this study, we acknowledged that facility factors supplied to equipment system played an important role in ILD-CMP process.

• Journal of the KSME
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• 제56권7호
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• pp.36-39
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• 2016

이 글에서는 1G DR AM급 이상의 고집적 반도체 소자를 제조하기 위해 필수적인 표면 평탄화 방법으로 CMP(Chemical Mechanical Planarization) 공정을 소개한다. 특히 반도체 소자를 구성하는 재료의 화학적 반응과 기계적 마멸 정도에 적합한 연마(polishing) 처방을 제공하고자 한다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 한국정밀공학회 2005년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.434-437
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• 2005

Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) has become an essential step in the overall semiconductor wafer fabrication technology. In general, CMP is a surface planarization method in which a silicon wafer is rotated against a polishing pad in the presence of slurry under pressure. The polishing pad, generally a polyurethane-based material, consists of polymeric foam cell walls, which aid in removal of the reaction products at the wafer interface. It has been found that the material removal rate of any polishing pad decreases due to the so-called 'pad glazing' after several wafer lots have been processed. Therefore, the pad restoration and conditioning has become essential in CMP processes to keep the urethane polishing pad at the proper friction coefficient and to allow effective slurry transport to the wafer surface. Diamond pad conditioner employs a single layer of brazed bonded diamond crystals. Due to the corrosive nature of the polishing slurry required in low pH metal CMP such as copper, it is essential to minimize the possibility of chemical interaction between very low pH slurry (pH <2) and the bond alloy. In this paper, we report an exceptional protective coated conditioner for in-situ pad conditioning in low pH Cu CMP process. The protective Cr-coated conditioner has been tested in slurry with pH levels as low as 1.5 without bond degradation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• 제20권3호
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• pp.213-217
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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 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• 제18권12호
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• pp.192-199
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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 hale been serious problems in CMP in terms of repeatability and deflects in patterned wafers. Especial1y, 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 abrasives and chemical etching. Therefore, it is known that dishing & erosion can be reduced by minimizing the abrasive concentration. Minimizing the abrasive concentration by using CeO$_2$is the best solution for reducing dishing & erosion and for removal rate. This paper introduce dishing & erosion generating mechanism and a method fur developing a semi-rigid abrasive pad to minimize dishing & erosion during CMP.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• 제32권7호
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• pp.627-631
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• 2015

Conventional etching technology is in the face of problems such as dishing, erosion resulting from non-uniform removal of film. Advanced printed circuit board (PCB) requires accurate wire formation with the aid of planarization by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). Linear roll CMP is a line contact continuous process which removes the film by pressurization and rotation while slurry is supplied to polishing pad attached to the roll. This paper focuses on the design of floating nozzle on the linear roll CMP equipment which makes the slurry supply uniformly on the roll pad. Experimental results show that removal rate using the floating nozzle increases 3 times higher than that without it and non-uniformity is less than 15%.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• 제16권5호
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• pp.385-389
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• 2003

There are four main components of the CMP process: polishing pad, slurry, elastic supporter, and pad conditioner. The polishing pad is an essential component to the reproducibility of polishing uniformity in CMP process. However, the polishing pad in recently using metal CMP raised the several points of high cost caused by the increase of cycle time and the many usage of slurry. It is necessary to develop the novel polishing pad which would lead the cost reduction by the higher pad life-cycle, minimized cycle time and lower slurry usage. The characteristics of polishing pad were studied on the effects of different sets of the Polishing pad, which can be applied to metal chemical mechanical polishing process for global planarization of multilevel interconnection structure. The main purpose of this experiment is cost reduction by the increase of pad life-time, the decrease of cycle time and the lower usage of slurry through the specific hard porous structured pad design. It is confirmed that the novel polishing pad made the slurry usage decrease to 60% as well as the pad life-time increase twice with the 25% improvement of removal rate. The polishing time could be decreased and it also helped the cycle time to diminish. It can be expected that this results will help both the process throughput and the device yield to be improved.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 한국재료학회 2011년도 추계학술발표대회
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• pp.24.2-24.2
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• 2011

Ru is used as a bottom electrode capacitor in dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) and ferroelectric random access memories (FRAMs). The surface of the Ru needs to be planarized which is usually done by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). Ru CMP process requires chemical slurry consisting of abrasive particles and oxidizer. A slurry containing NaIO4 and alumina particles is already proposed for Ru CMP process. However, the stability of the slurry is critical in the CMP process since if the particles in the slurry get agglomerated it would leave scratches on the surface being planarized. Thus, in the present work, the stability behavior of the slurry using a suitable anionic polyelectrolyte is investigated. The parameters such as slurry pH, polyelectrolyte concentration, adsorption time and the sequence of addition of chemicals are optimized. The results show that the slurry is stable for longer time at an optimized condition. The polishing behavior of the Ru using the optimized slurry is also investigated.