• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.167-172
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• 2006

Submicron colloidal silica coated with ceria were prepared by mixing of silica and nano ceria particles and modified by hydrothermal reaction. The polishing efficiency of the ceria coated silica slurry was tested over oxide film on silicon wafer. By changing the polishing pressure in the range of $140{\sim}420g/cm^2$ with the ceria coated silica slurries in $100{\sim}300nm$, rates, WIWNU and friction force were measured. The removal rate was in the order of 200, 100, and 300 nm size silica coated with ceria. It was known that the smaller particle size gives the higher removal rate with higher contact area in Cu slurry. In the case of oxide film, the indentation volume as well as contact area gives effect on the removal rate depending on the size of abrasives. The indentation volume increase with the size of abrasive particles, which results to higher removal rate. The highest removal rate in 200 nm silica core coated with ceria is discussed as proper combination of indentation and contact area effect.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.47-51
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• 2013

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has become one of the key processes in wafer level stacking technology for 3D stacked IC. In this study, two-step CMP process was proposed to polish $Cu/SiO_2$ hybrid bonding surface, that is, Cu CMP was followed by $SiO_2$ CMP to minimize Cu dishing. As a result, Cu dishing was reduced down to $100{\sim}200{\AA}$ after $SiO_2$ CMP and surface roughness was also improved. The bonding interface showed no noticeable dishing or interface line, implying high bonding strength.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.863-867
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• 2014

In this study, an acoustic emission (AE) sensor was used for measuring the abrasive and molecular-scale phenomena in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). An AE sensor is a transducer that converts a mechanical wave into an electrical signal, and is capable of acquiring high-level frequencies from materials. Therefore, an AE sensor was installed in the CMP equipment and the signals were measured simultaneously during the polishing process. In this study, an AE monitoring system was developed for investigating the sensitivity of the AE signal to (a) the variations in the material properties of the pad, slurry, and wafer and (b) the change in conditions during the CMP process. This system was adapted to Oxide and Cu CMP processes. AE signal parameters including AE raw frequency, FFT, and amplitude were analyzed for understanding the abrasive and molecular-level phenomena in the CMP process. Finally, we verified that AE sensors with different bandwidths could function in complementary ways during CMP process monitoring.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.29-32
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• 2005

Chemical mechanical polishing is an essential process in the production of copper-based chips. On this work, the stability of hydrogen peroxide ($H_{2}O_{2}$) as an oxidizer of copper CMP slurry has been investigated. $H_{2}O_{2}$ is known as the most common oxidizer in copper CMP slurry. But $H_{2}O_{2}$ is so unstable that its stabilization is needed using as an oxidizer. As adding KOH as a pH buffering agent, stability of $H_{2}O_{2}$ decreased. However, $H_{2}O_{2}$ stability in slurry went up with putting in small amount of BTA as a film forming agent. There was no difference of $H_{2}O_{2}$ stability between pH buffering agents KOH and TMAH at similar pH value. Addition of $H_{2}O_{2}$ in slurry in advance of bead milling led to better stability than adding after bead milling. Adding phosphoric acid resulted in the higher stability. Using alumina C as an abrasive was good at stabilizing for $H_{2}O_{2}$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.24-29
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• 2005

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has been widely accepted for the global planarization of multi-layer structures in semiconductor manufacturing. Copper has been the candidate metallization material for ultra-large scale integrated circuits (ULSIs), owing to its excellent electro-migration resistance and low electrical resistance. However, it still has various problems in copper CMP process. Thus, it is important to understand the effect of the process variables such as turntable speed, head speed, down force and back pressure are very important parameters that must be carefully formulated in order to achieve desired the removal rates and non-uniformity. Using a design of experiment (DOE) approach, this study was performed investigating the main effect of the variables and the interaction between the various parameters during CMP. A better understanding of the interaction behavior between the various parameters and the effect on removal rate, non-uniformity and ETC (edge to center) is achieved by using the statistical analysis techniques. In the experimental tests, the optimum parameters which were derived from the statistical analysis could be found for higher removal rate and lower non-uniformity through the above DOE results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.88-88
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• 2007

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) 공정은 그 어원에서 알 수 있듯이 슬러리의 화학적인 요소와 웨이퍼에 가해지는 기계적 압력에 의해 결정되는 평탄화 기술이다. 최근, 금속배선공정에서 높은 전도율과 재료의 값이 싸다는 이유로 Cu률 사용하였으나, 디바이스의 구조적 특성을 유지하기 위해 높은 압력으로 인한 새로운 다공성 막(low-k)의 파괴와, 디싱과 에로젼 현상으로 인한 문제점이 발생하게 되었다. 이러한 문제점을 해결하고자, 본 논문에서는 Cu 표면에 Passivation layer를 형성 및 제거하는 개념으로 공정시 연마제를 사용하지 않으며, 낮은 압력조건에서 공정을 수행하기 위해, 전해질의 농도 변화에 따른 선형추의전압전류법과 순환전압전류법을 사용하여 전압활성화에 의한 전기화학적 반응이 어떤 영향을 미치는지 연구하였다.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.42-43
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• 2005

본 연구에서는 Cu 슬러리에 부식방지제인 BTA를 첨가하여 슬러리내의 과수의 농도, pH 의 변화, 연마입자의 종류에 따라 연마거동에 미치는 영향과 각 chemical 변화에 따른 Cu surface의 변화를 살펴보았다. BTA (Benzotriazole, $C_6H_4C_3H$)를 첨가함으로써 본 연구에서 시행된 pH 와 과수의 변화에 상관없이 Cu-BTA film을 형성하여 Cu의 dissolution을 최대한 억제하는 것을 확인할 수 있었다. 또 그로인해 BTA를 첨가하지 않았을 때보다 얇은 passivation layer를 형성함을 알 수 있었고 contact angle도 더 높았다. 연마율의 경우에도 BTA가 첨가됨으로써 감소됨을 확인할 수 있었고 연마입자로 alumina particle을 사용한 경우에는 pH6, 과수 10vol%이상에서는 오히려 연마율이 증가하였다. fumed silica의 경우에는 hardness가 작아 mechanical적인 제거력이 낮아 BTA가 첨가되어도 연마율에는 큰 영향이 없었다.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.94-103
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• 2007

The transition of interconnection metal from aluminum alloy to copper has been introduced to meet the requirements of high speed, ultra-large scale integration, and high reliability of the semiconductor device. Since copper, which has low electrical resistivity and high resistance to degradation, has different electrical and material characteristics compared to aluminum alloy, new related materials and processes are needed to successfully fabricate the copper interconnection. In this review, some important factors of multilevel copper damascene process have been surveyed such as diffusion barrier, seed layer, organic additives for bottom-up electro/electroless deposition, chemical mechanical polishing, and capping layer to introduce the related issues and recent research trends on them.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.05c
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• pp.162-165
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• 2003

The corrosion characteristics of diffusion barrier in Copper CMP has been investigated. Key experimental variables that has been investigated are the corrosion rate by different agents containing slurry of Cu CMP. Whenever Cu and Ta films were corroded adding each oxidizer, the corrosion rate of Ta was much lower than that of Cu. That is, the difference in the corrosion rates of Ta by oxidizer was not larger as compared with Cu. As corroded by complexing agents, the corrosion rate of Ta was close to O. The corrosion rate of Ta increased as added $HNO_3$ and $CH_3COOH$ compared with the reference slurry; on the other hand, it decreased with addition of HF. In addition, resulting corrosion rate went up with lower pH of agent. The corrosion rates by agents were however significant small; hence, it doesn't affect on the removal rate of Cu CMP practically. Consequently, this can be explained by assuming that the mechanical effect dominates than the chemical effect on the polishing rate of Ta(TaN).