• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.79-80
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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 planarization/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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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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 Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.101-106
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• 2017

The chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process combines the chemical effect of slurry with the mechanical effect of abrasive (slurry)-wafer-pads The slurry delivery system has a notable effect on polishing results, because the slurry distribution is changed by the supply method. Thus, the investigation of slurry pumps and nozzles with regard to the slurry delivery system becomes important. This paper investigated the effect of a centrifugal slurry pump on a spray nozzle system in terms of uniform slurry supply under a rotating copper (Cu) wafer, based on experimental results and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In conventional tools, the slurry is unevenly and discontinuously supplied to the pad, due to a pulsed flow caused by the peristaltic pump and distributed in a narrow area by the tube nozzle. Adopting the proposed slurry delivery system provides a higher uniformity and lowered shear stress than usual methods. Therefore, the newly developed slurry delivery system can improve the CMP performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.77-77
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• 2003

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.667-668
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.156-161
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• 2004

We investigated the effects of oxidizer additive on the performance of Cu-CMP process using commonly used tungsten slurry. In order to compare the removal rate and non-uniformity as a function of oxidizer contents, we used alumina-based tungsten slurry and copper blanket wafers deposited by DC sputtering method. According to the CMP removal rates and particle size distribution, and the microstructures of surface layer by SEM image as a function or oxidizer contents were greatly influenced by the slurry chemical composition of oxidizers. The difference in removal rate and roughness of copper surface are believed to cause by modification in the mechanical behavior of $Al_2$O$_3$abrasive particles in CMP slurry.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.81-81
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• 2007

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) 공정은 deep 서브마이크론 집적회로의 다층배선구조률 실현하기 위해 inter-metal dielectric (IMD), inter-layer dielectric layers (ILD), pre-metal dielectric (PMD) 층과 같은 절연막 외에도 W, Al, Cu와 같은 금속층을 평탄화 하는데 효과적으로 사용되고 있으며, 다양한 소자 제작 및 새로운 물질 등에도 광범위하게 응용되고 있다. 하지만 Cu damascene 구조 제작으로 인한 CMP 응용 과정에서, 기계적으로 깨지기 쉬운 65 nm의 소자 이하의 구조에서 새로운 저유전상수인 low-k 물질의 도입으로 인해 낮은 하력의 기계적 연마가 필요하게 되었다. 본 논문에서는 전기화학적 기계적 연마 적용을 위해, I-V 특성 곡선을 이용하여 active, passive, transient, trans-passive 영역의 전기화학적 특성을 알아보았으며, Cu 막의 표면 형상을 알아보기 위해 scanning electron microscopy (SEM) 측정과 energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) 분석을 통해 금속 화학적 조성을 조사하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.653-654
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• 2005

Stick-slip friction is one of the material removal mechanisms in tribology. This stick-slip friction occurs when the static friction force is larger than the dynamic friction force, and make the friction curve fluctuated. In the friction force monitoring system for chemical mechanical polishing(CMP), the friction force also vibrates just as stick-slip friction. It seems that the stick-slip friction causes scratches on the surface of moving parts. In this paper, A study on the scratches which occur during copper CMP was conducted in a view of stick-slip friction.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.426-430
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• 2005

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is an essential process in the production of integrated circuits containing copper interconnects. The effect of alanine in reactive slurries representative of those that might be used in copper CMP was studied with the aim of improving selectivity between copper(Cu) film and tantalum-nitride(TaN) film. We investigated the pH effect of nano-colloidal silica slurry containing alanine through the chemical mechanical polishing test for the 8(inch) blanket wafers as deposited Cu and TaN film, respectively. The copper and tantalum-nitride removal rate decreased with the increase of pH and reaches the neutral at pH 7, then, with the further increase of pH to alkaline, the removal rate rise to increase soddenly. It was found that alkaline slurry has a higher removal rate than acidic and neutral slurries for copper film, but the removal rate of tantalum-nitride does not change much. These tests indicated that alanine may improve the CMP process by controlling the selectivity between Cu and TaN film.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.102-109
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• 2000

It is difficult to meet the cleanliness requirement of $10^{10}/\textrm{cm}^2$ for the giga level device fabrication with mechanical cleaning techniques like scrubbing which is widely used to remove the particles generated during Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) processes. Therefore, the second cleaning process is needed to remove metallic contaminants which were not completely removed during the mechanical cleaning process. In this paper the experimental results for the removal of the metallic contaminants existing on the wafer surface using remote plasma $H_2$ cleaning and UV/$O_3$ cleaning techniques are reported. In the remote plasma $H_2$ cleaning the efficiency of contaminants removal increases with decreasing the plasma exposure time and increasing the rf-power. Also the optimum process conditions for the removal of K, Fe and Cu impurities which are easily found on the wafer surface after CMP processes are the plasma exposure time of 1min and the rf-power of 100 W. The surface roughness decreased by 30-50 % after remote plasma $H_2$ cleaning. On the other hand, the highest efficiency of K, Fe and Cu impurities removal was achieved for the UV exposure time of 30 sec. The removal mechanism of the metallic contaminants like K, Fe and Cu in the remote plasma $H_2$ and the UV/$O_3$ cleaning processes is as follows: the metal atoms are lifted off by $SiO^*$ when the $SiO^*$is evaporated after the chemical $SiO_2$ formed under the metal atoms reacts with $H^+ \; and\; e^-$ to form $SiO^*$.