• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.304-307
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• 2003

Replacement of aluminum by copper for interconnections in the semiconductor industry has raised a number of important issues. The integration of copper interconnection can be carried out by CMP(chemical mechanical polishing) is used to planarize the surface topography. In this experiments, we evaluated the optimization of several conditions for chemical additives during Cu CMP process. It was presented that the main cause of grown particle size is tartaric acid. The particle size was in inverse propotion to a quantity of bead and the time of milling process. The slurry stabilizer and oxidizer have been shown to have very good effect by addition in later milling process.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.410-415
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• 1999

The adhesion strength of sputtered copper films to Inconel substrates has been studied using the scratch test. The effects of substrate treatments before deposition such as chemical or ion bombardment etching were investigated by means of a mean critical load derived from a Weibull-like statistical analysis. It was found that the mean critical load was very weak unless the amorphous layer produced by mechanical polishing on the substrate surface was eliminated. Chemical etching in a nitric-hydrochloric acid bath was shown to have practically no effect on the enhancement of the adhesion. In contrast, the addition in this bath of nickel and copper sulphates allowed removal of the amorphous layer and an increase in the values of the mean critical load. However, it was observed that excessive chemical etching could cancel out the mean critical load enhancement. The results obtained in the case of ion bombardment etching pretreatments could be far higher than those obtained with chemical etching. Moreover, for a sufficiently long period of ion bombardment etching, the adhesion strength was so high that it was impossible to observe evidence of an adhesion failure.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.145-150
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• 2016

During the chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process, slurry that comprises abrasive particles can directly affect the CMP performance and quality. Mainly, the large particles in the slurry can generate the defects on the wafer. Thus, many kinds of filters have been used in the CMP process to remove unwanted over-sized particles. Among these filters, the point-of-use (POU) filter is used just before the slurry is supplied onto the CMP pad. In the CMP research field, analysis of the POU filter has been relatively exceptional, and previous studies have not focused on the standardized filtration efficiency (FE) or filter performance. Furthermore, conventional evaluation methods of filter performance are not appropriate for POU filters, as the POU filter is not a membrane type, but is instead a depth type roll filter. In order to accurately evaluate the POU filter, slurry FE according to particle size was measured in this study. Additionally, a CMP experiment was conducted with filtered slurry to demonstrate the effects of filtered slurry on CMP performance. Depending on the flow rate and the filter retention size, the FE according to particle size was different. When the small and large particles have different FEs, the total filtration efficiency (TFE) can still have a similar value. For this reason, there is a need to measure the FE with respect to the particle size to verify the effects of the POU filter on the CMP process.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.2110-2117
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• 2003

A physics-based material removal model in various scales is described and a feature scale simulation for a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process is performed in this work. Three different scales are considered in this model, i.e., abrasive particle scale, asperity scale and wafer scale. The abrasive particle and the asperity scales are combined together and then homogenized to result in force balance conditions to be satisfied in the wafer scale using an extended Greenwood-Williamson and Whitehouse-Archard statistical model that takes into consideration the joint distribution of asperity heights and asperity tip radii. The final computation is made to evaluate the material removal rate in wafer scale and a computer simulation is performed for detailed surface profile variations on a representative feature. The results show the dependence of the material removal rate on the joint distribution, applied external pressure, relative velocity, and other operating conditions and design parameters.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.649-650
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• 2005

반도체는 고집적화, 고속도화, 저전력화를 목적으로 발전하고 있다. 이를 위하여 design rule의 감소, 새로운 물질과 프로세스의 적용 등 많은 연구가 이루어지고 있으며, RC delay time을 줄이기 위한 Cu 와 저유전율 재료의 적용이 그 대표적인 예라 할 수 있다. Cu 배선은 기존의 Al 배선에 비하여 높은 전자이동 (electro-migration)과 응력 이동 (stress-migration) 저항을 가짐으로써 전기적인 성능 (electrical performance) 에서 이점을 가지고 있다. 반도체에서의 Cu 배선 구조는 평탄화된 표면 및 배선들 사이에서의 좋은 전기적인 절연성을 가져야 하며, 이는 디싱(dishing)과 에로젼(erosion)의 중요한 인자가 된다. 기존의 평탄화 공정인 Cu CMP(Chemical Mechanical Polishing)에 있어서 이러한 디싱, 에로전과 같은 결함은 선결되어져야 할 문제로 인식되고 있다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 이러한 결합들을 감소시키기 위한 새로운 평탄화 방법으로 Cu gap-filling 을 하는 동시에 평탄화된 표면을 이루는 ECMD(Electro-Chemical Mechanical Deposition) 공정의 전기적 기계적 특성을 파악하였다.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.731-738
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• 2006

It is seriously considered using Al CMP (chemical mechanical planarization) process for the next generation 45 nm Al wiring process. Al CMP is known that it has a possibility of reducing process time and steps comparing with conventional RIE (reactive ion etching) method. Also, it is more cost effective than Cu CMP and better electrical conductivity than W via process. In this study, we investigated 4 different kinds of slurries based on abrasives for reducing scratches which contributed to make defects in Al CMP. The abrasives used in this experiment were alumina, fumed silica, alkaline colloidal silica, and acidic colloidal silica. Al CMP process was conducted as functions of abrasive contents, $H_3PO_4$ contents and pressures to find out the optimized parameters and conditions. Al removal rates were slowed over 2 wt% of slurry contents in all types of slurries. The removal rates of alumina and fumed silica slurries were increased by phosphoric acid but acidic colloidal slurry was slightly increased at 2 vol% and soon decreased. The excessive addition of phosphoric acid affected the particle size distributions and increased scratches. Polishing pressure increased not only the removal rate but also the surface scratches. Acidic colloidal silica slurry showed the highest removal rate and the lowest roughness values among the 4 different slurry types.

• Proceedings of the KAIS Fall Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.272-275
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• 2006

본 논문에서는 CMP(Chemical Mechanical Polishing) 슬러리용으로 사용되는 저가이면서 입도 분포가 균일한 콜로이달 실리카(Colloidal Silica)를 사용하여 추가의 첨가제 없이 열처리 공정만을 거쳐 석영유리를 제조하여 6N의 순도와 1 mm 두께 기준 86%의 자외선 투과율 그리고 AFM(Atomic Force Microscopy) 및 간섭계 현미경을 이용하여 표면의 거칠기가 1 nm 미만인 고순도 석영유리를 제조하였다.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.117-123
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• 2014

Cu through-vias, which can be used as thermal vias or vertical interconnects, were formed using bottom-up electrodeposition filling as well as top-down electrodeposition filling into open via-holes and their microstructures were observed. Solid Cu through-vias without voids could be successfully formed by bottom-up filling as well as top-down filling with direct-current electrodeposition. While chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) to remove the overplated Cu layer was needed on both top and bottom surfaces of the specimen processed by top-down filling method, the bottomup process has an advantage that such CMP was necessary only on the top surface of the sample.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04b
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• pp.38-41
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• 2004

The oxidizer plays an important role in the metal chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) slurry. Currently, the oxidizer used in CMP slurry is nearly divided into several kinds such as $Fe(NO_3)_3$, $H_2O_2$, $KIO_3$, and $H_5IO_6$. It is generally known that oxidizer character of $H_2O_2$ is more effective than other oxidizers. In this work, we have been studied the characteristics for the $H_2O_2$ concentration of copper slurry, which can applicable in the recent semiconductor manufacturing process. Also, it plays an important role in the planarization of copper films using copper slurries during micro-electronic device fabrication. In this work, we confirmed that removal rate of Cu/TaN changed by $H_2O_2$ concentration on copper slurry. And we used $KMnO_4$ in the measurement method of $H_2O_2$. In analysis results, we confirmed that the difference of results is large. We thought that the difference was due to organic component existence. So in titration method of $H_2O_2$ concentration, we used $Na_2S_2O_3$ instead of $KMnO_4$ as solution. Consequently, using the titration method, we could calculate correct data reduced error. And $H_2O_2$ concentration has been adjusted to the target concentration of 0.1 wt%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.185-188
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• 2001

Chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) process is widely used for global planarization of inter-metal dielectric (IMD) layer and inter-layer dielectric (ILD) for deep sub-micron technology. However, as the IMD and ILD layer gets thinner, defects such as micro-scratch lead to severe circuit failure, which affect yield. In this paper, for the improvement of CMP process, deionized water (DIW) pressure, purified $N_2 \; (PN_2)$ gas, slurry filter and high spray bar were installed. Our experimental results show that DIW pressure and $PN_2$ gas factors were not related with removal rate, but edge hot-spot of patterned wafer had a serious relation. Also, the filter installation in CMP polisher could reduce defects after CMP process, it is shown that slurry filter plays an important role in determining consumable pad lifetime. The filter lifetime is dominated by the defects. However, the slurry filter is impossible to prevent defect-causing particles perfectly. Thus, we suggest that it is necessary to install the high spray bar of de-ionized water (DIW) with high pressure, to overcome the weak-point of slurry filter. Finally, we could expect the improvements of throughput, yield and stability in the ULSI fabrication process.