• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.889-893
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• 2006

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) achieves surface planrity through combined mechanical and chemical means. The role of slurry is very important in metal CMP. Slurry used in metal CMP normally consists of oxidizers, complexing agents, corrosion inhibitors and abrasives. This paper investigates the effects of citric acid as a complexing agent for Cu CMP with $H_2O_2$. In order to study chemical effects of citric acid, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was peformed on Cu sample after etching test. XPS results reveal that CuO, $Cu(OH)_2$ layer decrease but $CU/CU_2O$ layer increase on Cu sample surface. To investigate nanomechanical properties of Cu sample surface, nanoindentation was performed on Cu sample. Results of nanoindentation indicate wear resistance of Cu surface decrease. According to decrease of wear resistance on Cu surface removal rate increases from $285\;{\AA}/min\;to\;8645\;{\AA}/min$ in Cu CMP.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.335-338
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• 2003

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been widely used to planarize dielectric layers, which can be applied to the integrated circuits for sub-micron technology. Despite the increased use of CMP process, it is difficult to accomplish the global planarization of in the defect-free inter-layer dielectrics (ILD). Especially, defects such as micro-scratch lead to severe circuit failure which affect yield. CMP slurries can contain particles exceeding $1\;{\mu}m$ in size, which could cause micro-scratch on the wafer surface. In this paper, we have studied aging effect the of CMP sin as a function of particle size. We prepared and compared the self-developed silica slurry by adding of abrasives before and after annealing. As our preliminary experiment results, we could be obtained the relatively stable slurry characteristics comparable to original silica slurry in the slurry aging effect.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.08a
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• pp.12-14
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• 2003

As the integrated circuit device shrinks to the smaller dimension, the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). process was required for the global planarization of inter-metal dielectric (IMD) layer with free-defect. However, as the IMD layer gets thinner, micro-scratches are becoming as major defects. Micro-scratches are generated by agglomerated slurry, solidified and attached slurry in pipe line of slurry supply system. It is well known that the presence of hard and larger size particles in the CMP slurries increases the defect density and surface roughness of the polished wafers. In this paper, we have studied. aging effect the of CMP slurry as a function of particle size. We prepared and compared the self-developed silica slurry by adding of abrasives before and after annealing. As our preliminary experiment results, we could be obtained the relatively stable slurry characteristics comparable to original silica slurry in the slurry aging effect.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.05c
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• pp.37-40
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• 2003

As the integrated circuit device shrinks to the smaller dimension, the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process was required for the global planarization of inter-metal dielectric (IMD) layer with free-defect. However, as the IMD layer gets thinner, micro-scratches are becoming as major defects. Micro-scratches are generated by agglomerated slurry, solidified and attached slurry in pipe line of slurry supply system. It is well known that the presence of hard and larger size particles in the CMP slurries increases the defect density and surface roughness of the polished wafers. In this paper, we have studied aging effect the of CMP slurry as a function of particle size. We prepared and compared the self-developed silica slurry by adding of abrasives before and after annealing. As our preliminary experiment results, we could be obtained the relatively stable slurry characteristics comparable to original silica slurry in the slurry aging effect.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.05c
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• pp.41-44
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• 2003

As the device feature size is reduced to the deep sub-micron regime, the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) technology is widely recognized as the most promising method to achieve the global planarization of the multilevel interconnection for ULSI applications. However, cost of ownership (COO) and cost of consumables (COC) were relatively increased because of expensive slurry. In this paper, the effects of different slurry composition on the oxide CMP characteristics were investigated to obtain the higher removal rate and lower non-uniformity. We prepared the various kinds of slurry. In order to save the costs of slurry, the original slurry was diluted by de-ionized water (DIW). And then, alunima abrasives were added in the diluted slurry in order to promote the mechanical force of diluted slurry.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.192-199
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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 hale been serious problems in CMP in terms of repeatability and deflects in patterned wafers. Especial1y, 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 abrasives and chemical etching. Therefore, it is known that dishing & erosion can be reduced by minimizing the abrasive concentration. Minimizing the abrasive concentration by using CeO$_2$is the best solution for reducing dishing & erosion and for removal rate. This paper introduce dishing & erosion generating mechanism and a method fur 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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• 2003.05c
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• pp.145-148
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• 2003

Recently, the recycle of CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) slurries have been positively considered in order to reduce the high COO (cost of ownership) and COC (cost of consumables) in CMP process. Among the composition of slurries (buffer solution, bulk solution, abrasive particle, oxidizer, inhibitor, suspension, antifoaming agent, dispersion agent), the abrasive particles are one of the most important components. Especially, the abrasive particles of slurry are needed in order to achieve a good removal rate. However, the cost of abrasives, is still very high. In this paper, we have collected the silica abrasive powders by filtering after subsequent CMP process for the purpose of abrasive particle recycling. And then, we have studied the possibility of recycle of reused silica abrasive through the analysis of particle size and hardness. Also, we annealed the collected abrasive powders to promote the mechanical strength of reduced abrasion force. Finally, we compared the CMP characteristics between self-developed KOH-based silica abrasive slurry and original slury, As our experimental results, we obtained the comparable removal rate and good planarity with commercial products. Consequently, we can expect the saving of high cost slurry.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.622-625
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• 2004

The CMP monitoring system was newly developed by the aid of friction force measurement, resulting from installation of piezoelectric quartz sensor on R&D polisher. The correlation between friction and CMP results was investigated in terms of tribological aspects by using the monitoring system. Various friction signals were monitored and analyzed by the change of experimental conditions such as pressure, velocity, pad and slurry. First of all, the lubrication regimes were classified with Sommerfeld Number through measuring coefficient of friction in ILD CMP. And then, the removal mechanism of abrasives could be understood through the correlation with removal rate and coefficient of friction. Especially, the amount of material removal per unit sliding distance is directly proportional to the friction force. The uniformity of CMP performances was also deteriorated as coefficient of friction increased.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.07a
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• pp.601-602
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• 2006

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) technology has been widely used for global planarization of multi-level interconnection for ULSI applications. However, the cost of ownership and cost of consumables are relatively high because of expensive slurry. In this paper, we studied the mixed abrasive slurry(MAS). In order to save the costs of slurry, the original silica slurry was diluted by de-ionized water (DIW). And then, $ZrO_2$,$CeO_2$, and $MnO_2$ abrasives were added in the diluted slurry in order to promote the mechanical force of diluted slurry. We have also investigate the possibility of mixed abrasive slurry for the oxide CMP application.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.07a
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• pp.605-606
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• 2006

CMP(chemical mechanical polishing) process has been attracted as an essential technology of multi-level interconnection. However, the COO(cost of ownership) is very high, because of high consumable cost. Especially, among the consumables, slurry dominates more than 40 %. So, we focused how to reduce the consumption of raw slurry. In this paper, $ZrO_2$,$CeO_2$, and $MnO_2$ abrasives were added de-ionized water (DIW) and pH control as a function of KOH contents. We have investigate the possibility of new abrasive for the oxide CMP application.