• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.67-70
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• 2024

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is an essential process for ensuring high integration when manufacturing semiconductor devices. CMP mainly requires the use of polyurethane-based polishing pads as an ultraprecise process to achieve mechanical material removal and the required chemical reactions. A diamond disk performs pad conditioning to remove processing residues on the pad surface and maintain sufficient surface roughness during CMP. However, the diamond grits attached to the disk cause uneven wear of the pad, leading to the poor uniformity of material removal during CMP. This study investigates the pad wear rate profile according to the swing motion of the conditioner during swing-arm-type CMP conditioning using deep learning. During conditioning, the motion of the swing arm is independently controlled in eight zones of the same pad radius. The experiment includes six swingmotion conditions to obtain actual data on the pad wear rate profile, and deep learning learns the pad wear rate profile obtained in the experiment. The absolute average error rate between the experimental values and learning results is 0.01%. This finding confirms that the experimental results can be well represented by learning. Pad wear rate profile prediction using the learning results reveals good agreement between the predicted and experimental values.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.23 no.6_2
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• pp.1051-1058
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• 2020

The chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is a process of physically and chemically polishing the semiconductor substrate. The planarization quality of a substrate can be evaluated by the within wafer non-uniformity (WIWNU). In order to improve WIWNU, it is important to manage the pad profile. In this study, a device capable of non-contact measurement of the pad thickness profile was developed. From the measured pad profile, the profile of the pad surface and the groove was extracted using the envelope function, and the pad thickness profile was derived using the difference between each profile. Thickness profiles of various CMP pads were measured using the developed PMS and envelope function. In the case of IC series pads, regardless of the pad wear amount, the envelopes closely follow the pad surface and grooves, making it easy to calculate the pad thickness profile. In the case of the H80 series pad, the pad thickness profile was easy to derive because the pad with a small wear amount did not reveal deep pores on the pad surface. However, the pad with a large wear amount make errors in the lower envelope profile, because there are pores deeper than the grooves. By removing these deep pores through filtering, the pad flatness could be clearly confirmed. Through the developed PMS and the pad thickness profile calculation method using the envelope function, the pad life, the amount of wear and the pad flatness can be easily derived and used for various pad analysis.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2022

Chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process is a semiconductor process that planarizes a wafer surface using mechanical friction between a polishing pad and a substrate surface during a specific chemical reaction. During the CMP process, polishing pad conditioning is applied to prevent the rapid degradation of the polishing quality caused by polishing pad glazing through repeated material removal processes. However, during the conditioning process, uneven wear on the polishing pad is inevitable because the disk on which diamond particles are electrodeposited is used. Therefore, the abrasion of the polishing pad should be considered not only for the variables during the conditioning process but also when designing the CMP conditioning system. In this study, three design variables of the conditioning system were analyzed, and the effect on the pad wear profile during conditioning was investigated. The three design variables considered in this study were the length of the conditioner arm, diameter of the conditioner disk, and distance between centers. The Taguchi method was used for the experimental design. The effect of the three design variables on pad wear and uniformity was assessed, and new variables used in conditioning system design were proposed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.309-313
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• 2006

Pad surface characteristics such as roughness, groove and wear rate of pad have a effect on the within wafer non-uniformity(WIWNU) in chemical mechanical polishing(CMP). Although WIWNU increases as the uniformity of roughness(Rpk: Reduced peak height) becomes worse in an early stage of polishing time, WIWNU decreases as non-uniformity of the Rpk value. Also, WIWNU decreases with the reduction of the pad stiffness, though original mechanical properties of pad are unchanged by the grooving process. In addition, conditioning process causes the inequality of pad wear during in CMP. The profile of pad wear generated by the conditioning process has a significant effect on the WIWNU. These experiments results could help to understand the effect of pad surface characteristics in CMP.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.38-39
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• 2005

We have investigated the effect of the pad surface characteristics such as roughness, groove density and wear of pad on within wafer non-uniformity(WIWNU) in chemical mechanical polishing(CMP). We found that WIWNU increases as pad surface roughness($R_{pk}$; Reduced peak height) increases in an early stage of polishing. But after polishing time goes to a certain extent, WIWNU decreases as uniformity of pad surface roughness. Also, groove of pad has effect on relative pad stiffness although original mechanical properties of pad are unchanged by grooving. WIWNU decreases as relative pad stiffness decreases. In addition, conditioning process causes non-uniform wear of pad during in CMP. The profile of pad wear has a significant effect on WIWNU.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.47-48
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• 2007

A CMP Process has many factors that affect result of a polished wafer. Dominant factors are velocity, pressure and temperature in process. A pad profile is also considered as affecting factor of CMP. Accoding to variation of a pad profile, the each pan of a wafer is differently pressured. It appears to affect the uniformity of a wafer. A pad profile varies as a swing arm conditioner which have been ordinarily used in industry. A swing arm conditioner has several sectors in its swing path. This study aims that a wafer get a good uniformity as swing arm conditioner's path on pad is analyzed and simulated. Through the simulation, tendency of pad profile after conditioning will be predicted and the result of simulation compared with the result of experiment. The optimized pad profile would be made by to vary swing arm's velocity on each sector. In order to maintain the optimized profile, conditioner design or swing arm's velocity should be changed and designed.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.330-336
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• 2019

Conditioning is a process involving pad surface scraping by a moving metallic disk that is electrodeposited with diamond abrasives. It is an indispensable process in chemical-mechanical planarization, which regulates the pad roughness by removing the surface residues. Additionally, conditioning maintains the material removal rates and increases the pad lifetime. As the conditioning continues, the pad profile becomes unevenly to be deformed, which causes poor polishing quality. Simulation calculates the density at which the diamond abrasives on the conditioner scratch the unit area on the pad. It can predict the profile deformation through the control of conditioner dwell time. Previously, this effect of the diamond shape on conditioning has been investigated with regard to microscopic areas, such as surface roughness, rather than global pad-profile deformation. In this study, the effect of diamond shape on the pad profile is evaluated by comparing the simulated and experimental conditioning using two conditioners: a) random-shaped abrasive conditioner (RSC) and b) uniform-shaped abrasive conditioner (USC). Consequently, it is confirmed that the USC is incapable of controlling the pad profile, which is consistent with the simulation results.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.152-161
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• 2022

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is a technology that planarizes the surfaces of semiconductor devices using chemical reaction and mechanical material removal, and it is an essential process in manufacturing highly integrated semiconductors. In the CMP process, a conditioning process using a diamond conditioner is applied to remove by-products generated during processing and ensure the surface roughness of the CMP pad. In previous studies, prediction of pad wear by CMP conditioning has depended on numerical analysis studies based on mathematical simulation. In this study, using an artificial neural network, the ratio of conditioner coverage to the distance between centers in the conditioning system is input, and the average conditioning density, standard deviation, nonuniformity (NU), and conditioning density distribution are trained as targets. The result of training seems to predict the target data well, although the average conditioning density, standard deviation, and NU in the contact area of wafer and pad and all areas of the pad have some errors. In addition, in the case of NU, the prediction calculated from the training results of the average conditioning density and standard deviation can reduce the error of training compared with the results predicted through training. The results of training on the conditioning density profile generally follow the target data well, confirming that the shape of the conditioning density profile can be predicted.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.123-124
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• 2010

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.171-175
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• 2001

Chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) process has been widely used to planarize dielectrics and metal, which can apply to employed in integrated circuits for sub-micron technology. Despite the increased use of CMP process, it is difficult to accomplish the global planarization of free-defects in inter level dielectrics and metal. Especially, defects like (micro-scratch) lead to severe circuit failure, and affects yield. Current conditioning method - bladder type, orbital pad motion- usually provides unsuitable pad profile during ex-situ conditioning near the end of pad life. Since much of the pad wear occurs by the mechanism of bladder type conditioning and its orbital motion without rotation, we need to implement new ex-situ conditioner which can prevent abnormal regional force on pad caused by bladder-type and also need to rotate the pad during conditioning. Another important study of ADPC is related to the orbital scratch of which source is assumed as diamond grit dropped from the strip during ex-situ conditioning. Scratch from diamond grit damaged wafer severely so usually scraped. Figure 1 shows the typical shape of scratch damaged from diamond. e suspected that intensive forces to the edge area of bladder type stripper accelerated the drop of Diamond grit during conditioning. so new designed Flat stripper was introduced.