• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.352-353
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• 2005

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film was polished by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) immediately after pad conditioning with the various conditioning temperatures by control of do-ionized water (DIW). Light transparent efficiency of ITO thin film was improved after CMP process after pad conditioning at the high temperature because the surface morphology was smoother by soften polishing pad and decreased particle size.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2000.05a
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• pp.854-857
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• 2000

Chemical Mechanical Polishing(CMP) has been accepted as one of the essential processes for VLSI fabrication. However, as the polishing process continues, pad pores get to be glazed by polishing residues, which hinder the supply of new slurry. This defect makes removal rate decrease with a number of polished wafer and the desired within-chip planarity, within wafer and wafer-to-wafer nonuniformity are unable to be achieved. So, pad conditioning is essential to overcome this defect. The eletroplated diamond grit disk is used as the conventional conditioner, And alumina long fiber, the .jet power of high pressure deionized water and vacuum compression are under investigation. But, these methods have the defects like scratches on wafer surface by out of diamond grits, subsidences of pad pores by over-conditioning, and the limits of conditioning effect. To improve these conditioning methods. this paper presents the Characteristics of Ultrasonic conditioning aided by cavitation.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.67-72
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• 2007

High Pressure Micro Jet (HPMJ) pad conditioning system was investigated as an alternative to diamond disc conditioning in copper CMP. A series of comparative 50-wafer marathon runs were conducted at constant wafer pressure and sliding velocity using Rohm & Haas IC1000 and Asahi-Kasei EMD Corporation (UNIPAD) concentrically grooved pads under ex-situ diamond conditioning or HPMJ conditioning. SEM images indicated that fibrous surface was restored using UNIPAD pads under both diamond and HPMJ conditioning. With IC1000 pads, asperities on the surface were significantly collapsed. This was believed to be due to differences in pad wear rates for the two conditioning methods. COF and removal rate were stable from wafer to wafer using both diamond and HPMJ conditioning when UNIPAD pads were used. Also, HPMJ conditioning showed higher COF and removal rate when compared to diamond conditioning for UNIPAD. On the other hand, COF and removal rates for IC1000 pads decreased significantly under HPMJ conditioning. Regardless of pad conditioning method adopted and the type of pad used, linear correlation was observed between temperature and COF, and removal rate and COF.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.16 no.5 s.98
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• pp.40-47
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• 1999

In CMP for semiconductor wafer films, the acceptable within-chip planarity, within-wafer and wafer-to-wafer nonuniformity could be achieved by conditioning. The role of conditioning is to remove continuously polishing residues from pad and to maintain the initial pad surface pores. To reach these requirements, the diamond grits disk has been considered as a conventional conditioner. However, we have investigated many defects as scratch on wafers out of diamond grits shedding, contaminations from bonding materials, and pad pore subsidences by over-conditioning. So, this paper studies the effect of ultrasonic vibration in CMP conditioning as a representative. The effect of ultrasonic vibration was certified through ILD, Metal CMP.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.963-967
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• 2008

There are many factors to affect polishing performance normally in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process. One of the factors is a pad profile. A pad profile has not been considered as a significant factor. However, a pad profile is easily changed by conditioning process in CMP, and then changed pad profile affects polishing performance. Therefore, understanding how the pad profile is changed by conditioning process is very important. In this paper, through the simulation based on kinematic analysis, the variation of the pad profile was described in accordance with difference condition of conditioning process. A swing-arm type conditioner was applied in this simulation. A swing-arm type conditioner plays a role of generating asperities on pad surface. The conditions of conditioing process to get uniform removal were also investigated by comparing the simulation with the experiment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.569-570
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• 2006

The conditioning process is very important process for the CMP (Chemical Mechaning Polishing). This process regenerates the roughness of the polishing pad during the CMP process, increases the MRR (Material Removal Rate) and gives us longer pad life so conditioning process is essential for the CMP, and conditioning process influences the polishing pad shape gradually. Conditining process is related to the Non-Uniformity. In This paper, Kinematic of the conditioning process and mathematic modeling of the pad wear is studied and result shows how the various parameters influence the pad shape and WIWNU[1]. Consequently through these parameter, optimal design of the conditioning process equipment is predicted.

• 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 Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.86-89
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• 2003

Chemical Mechanical Planarization(CMP) has been accepted as the most effective processes for ultra large scale integrated (ULSI) chip manufacturing. However, as the polishing process continues, pad pores get to be glazed by polishing residues, which hinder the supply of new slurry. And pad surface is ununiformly deformed as real contact distance. These defects make material removal rate(MRR) decrease with a number of polishied wafer. Also the desired within-chip planarity, within wafer non-uniformity(WIWNU) and wafer to wafer non-uniformity(WTWNU) arc unable to be achieved. So, pad conditioning in CMP Process is essential to overcome these defects. The eletroplated or brazed diamond conditioner is used as the conventional conditioning. And. allumina long fiber, the jet power of high pressure deionized water, vacuum compression. ultrasonic conditioner aided by cavitation effect and ceramic plate conditioner are once used or under investigation. But. these methods arc not sufficient for ununiformly deformed pad surface and the limits of conditioning effect. So this paper focuses on the characteristics of diamond conditioner which reopens glazed pores and removes ununiformly deformed pad away.

• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.2C no.5
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• pp.262-267
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• 2002

In this paper, we first studied the factors affecting the motor current (MC) signal, which was strongly affected by the systematic hardware noises depending on polishing such as pad conditioning and arm oscillation of platen and recipe, head motor. Next, we studied the end point detection (EPD) for the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process of shallow trench isolation (STI) with reverse moat structure. The MC signal showed a high amplitude peak in the fore part caused by the reverse meal. pattern. We also found that the EP could not be detected properly and reproducibly due to the pad conditioning effect, especially when conventional low selectivity slurry was used. Even when there was no pad conditioning effect, the EPD method could not be applied, since the measured end points were always the same due to the characteristics of the reverse moat structure with an open nitride layer.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.148-150
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• 2005

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film was polished by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) immediately after pad conditioning with the various conditioning temperatures by control of de-ionized water (DIW). Light transparent efficiency of ITO thin film was improved after CMP process after pad conditioning at the high temperature because the surface morphology was smoother by soften polishing pad and decreased particle size.