• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.24-27
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• 2001

The end point of oxide chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) have determined by polishing time calculated from removal rate and target thickness of oxide. This study is about control of oxide removal amounts on the shallow trench isolation (STI) patterned wafers using removal rate and thickness of blanket (non-patterned) wafers. At first, it was investigated the removal properties of PETEOS blanket wafers, and then it was compared with the removal properties and the planarization (step height) as a function of polishing time of the specific STI patterned wafers. We found that there is a relationship between the oxide removal amounts of blanket and patterned wafers. We analyzed this relationship, and the post CMP thickness of patterned wafers could be controlled by removal rate and removal target thickness of blanket wafers. As the result of correlation analysis, we confirmed that there was the strong correlation between patterned and blanket wafer (correlation factor: 0.7109). So, we could confirm the repeatability as applying for STI CMP process from the obtained linear formula. As the result of repeatability test, the differences of calculated polishing time and actual polishing time was about 3.48 seconds. If this time is converted into the thickness, then it is from 104 $\AA$ to 167 $\AA$. It is possible to be ignored because process margin is about 1800 $\AA$.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.56-60
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• 2016

Sapphire has a high hardness and strength and chemical stability as a superior material. It is used mainly as a material for a semiconductor as well as LED. Recently, the cover glass industry used by a sapphire is getting a lot of attention. The sapphire substrate is manufactured through ingot sawing, lapping, diamond mechanical polishing (DMP) and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process. DMP is an important process to ensure the surface quality of several nm for CMP process as well as to determine the final form accuracy of the substrate. In DMP process, the material removal is achieved by using the mechanical energy of the relative motion to each other in the state that the diamond slurry is disposed between the sapphire substrate and the polishing platen. The polishing platen is one of the most important factors that determine the material removal characteristics in DMP. Especially, it is known that the geometric characteristics of the polishing platen affects the material removal amount and its distribution. This paper investigated the material removal characteristics and the effects of the polishing platen groove in sapphire DMP. The experiments were preliminarily carried out to evaluate the sapphire material removal characteristics according to process parameters such as pressure, relative velocity and so on. In the experiment, the monitoring apparatus was applied to analyze process phenomena in accordance with the processing conditions. From the experimental results, the correlation was analyzed among process parameters, polishing phenomena and the material removal characteristics. The material removal equation based on phenomenological factors could be derived. And the experiment was followed to investigate the effects of platen groove on material removal characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.91-97
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• 2018

Chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) realizes a surface planarity through combined mechanical and chemical means. In CMP process, Preston equation is known as one of the most general approximation of the removal rate. Effects of pressure and relative speed on the mechanical property of Cu CMP has been investigated. On the other hand, The amount of abrasion also increased with changes in pressure and speed, resulting in a proportional increase of temperature during CMP. Especially this temperature is an important factor to change chemical reaction in a Cu CMP. However, when the slurry temperature became higher than $70^{\circ}C$, the removal rate went lower due to abrasives aggregation and scratching occurred on the Cu film. Therefore, it was found that the slurry temperature should not exceed $70^{\circ}C$ during Cu CMP. Finally, authors could increase the pressure, speed and slurry temperature up to a ceratin level to improve the removal rate without surface defects.

• 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.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.6 no.2 s.19
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• pp.35-40
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• 2007

An integrated material removal model considering thermal, chemical and contact mechanical effects in CMP process is proposed. These effects are highly coupled together in the current modeling effort. The contact mechanics is employed in the model incorporated with the heat transfer and chemical reaction mechanisms. The mechanical abrasion actions happening due to the mechanical contacts between the wafer and abrasive particles in the slurry and between the wafer and pad asperities cause friction and consequently generate heats, which mainly acts as the heat source accelerating chemical reaction(s) between the wafer and slurry chemical(s). The proposed model may be a help in understanding multi-physical interactions in CMP process occurring among the wafer, pad and various consumables such as slurry.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.79-85
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• 2015

RC delay is a critical issue for achieving high performance of ULSI devices. In order to minimize the RC delay time, we uses the CMP process to introduce high-conductivity Cu and low-k materials on the damascene. The low-k materials are generally soft and fragile, resulting in structure collapse during the conventional high-pressure CMP process. One troubleshooting method is electrochemical mechanical polishing (ECMP) which has the advantages of high removal rate, and low polishing pressure, resulting in a well-polished surface because of high removal rate, low polishing pressure, and well-polished surface, due to the electrochemical acceleration of the copper dissolution. This study analyzes an electrochemical state (active, passive, transpassive state) on a potentiodynamic curve using a three-electrode cell consisting of a working electrode (WE), counter electrode (CE), and reference electrode (RE) in a potentiostat to verify an electrochemical removal mechanism. This study also tries to find optimum conditions for ECMP through experimentation. Furthermore, during the low-pressure ECMP process, we investigate the effect of current density on surface roughness and removal rate through anodic oxidation, dissolution, and reaction with a chelating agent. In addition, according to the Faraday’s law, as the current density increases, the amount of oxidized and dissolved copper increases. Finally, we confirm that the surface roughness improves with polishing time, and the current decreases in this process.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.34-38
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• 2005

Effects of pH level and slurry particle size on material removal rate and planarization of langasite single crystal wafer have been examined. Higher material removal rate was obtained with lower pH level slurries while the planarization was found to be determined by average particle size of colloidal silica slurries. Slurries containing 0.045 ㎛ amorphous silica particles showed the best polishing effect without any scratches on the surface. Effective particle number has a strong effect on the surface planarization and the removal rate, so that the lower effective particle numbers produced low removal rate but the better planarization results.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.214-219
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• 2017

Abrasive fluidized bed machining (AFBM) is similar to general abrasive fluidized machining (AFM) in that it can perform polishing of the outer and inner surfaces of a 3-dimensional shape by the flow of particles. However, in the case of AFM, the shear force generated by the flow of the particles causes material removal, while in AFBM, the abrasive particles are suspended in the chamber to form a bed. AFBM can be used for deburring, polishing, edge contouring, shot peening, and cleaning of mechanical parts. Most studies on AFBM are limited to metals, and research on application of AFBM to plastic materials has not been performed yet. Therefore, in this study, we investigate the effect of rotating speed of the specimen and the air flow rate on the material removal characteristics during AFBM of polyacetal with a horizontal AFBM machine. The material removal rate (MRR) increases linearly with increase of the rotating speed of the main shaft because of the shear force between the particles of the fluidized bed and the rotation of the workpiece. The reduction in surface roughness tends to increase as the rotating speed of the main shaft increases. As the air flow rate increases, the MRR tends to decrease. At a flow rate of 70 L/min or more, the MRR remains almost constant. The reduction of the surface roughness of the specimen is found to decrease with increasing air flow rate.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.289-294
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• 2012

There are several indicators to represent characteristics of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) such as material removal rate (MRR), surface quality and removal uniformity on a wafer surface. Especially, the removal uniformity on the wafer edge is one of the most important issues since it gives a significant impact on the yield of chip production on a wafer. Non-uniform removal rate at the wafer edge (edge effect) is mainly induced by a non-uniform pressure from nonuniform pad curvature during CMP process, resulting in edge exclusion which means the region that cannot be made to a chip. For this reason, authors tried to minimize the edge exclusion by using an edge profile control (EPC) ring. The EPC ring is equipped on the polishing head with the wafer to protect a wafer from the edge effect. Experimental results showed that the EPC ring could dramatically minimize the edge exclusion of the wafer. This study shows a possibility to improve the yield of chip production without special design changes of the CMP equipment.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2007

The integrated thermal-chemical-mechanical (TCM) material removal model presented in the companion paper is dynamically simulated in this work. The model is applied to a Cu CMP process for the simulation and the results of the three individual ingredients composing the model are presented separately first. These results are then incorporated to calculate the total material removal rate (MRR) of the Cu CMP. It is shown that the non-linear trend of MRR with respect to the applied mechanical power (i.e., non-Prestonian behavior), which is not well explained with the models established in principle on conventional contact mechanics, may be due to the chemical reaction(s) varying non-linearly with the temperature in the wafer.