• Tribology and Lubricants
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.226-234
• /
• 2018

Copper chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) has become a key process in integrated circuit (IC) technology. The results of copper CMP depend not only on the mechanical abrasion, but also on the slurry chemistry. The slurry used for Cu CMP is known to have greater chemical reactivity than mechanical material removal. The Cu CMP slurry is composed of abrasive particles, an oxidizing agent, a complexing agent, and a corrosion inhibitor. Citric acid can be used as the complexing agent in Cu CMP slurries, and is widely used for post-CMP cleaning. Although many studies have investigated the effect of citric acid on Cu CMP, no studies have yet been conducted on the interfacial friction characteristics and step height reduction in CMP patterns. In this study, the effect of citric acid on the friction characteristics and step height reduction in a copper wafer with varying pattern densities during CMP are investigated. The prepared slurry consists of citric acid ($C_6H_8O_7$), hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$), and colloidal silica. The friction force is found to depend on the concentration of citric acid in the copper CMP slurry. The step heights of the patterns decrease rapidly with decreasing citric acid concentration in the copper CMP slurry. The step height of the copper pattern decreases more slowly in high-density regions than in low-density regions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2004.07a
• /
• pp.239-242
• /
• 2004

We investigated the nanotopography impact on the post-chemical mechanical polishing (post-CMP) oxide thickness deviation(OTD) of ceria slurry with a surfactant. Not only the surfactant but also the slurry abrasive size influenced the nanotopography impact. The magnitude of the post-CMP OTD increased with adding the surfactant in the case of smaller abrasives, but it did not increase in the case of larger abrasives, while the magnitudes of the nanotopography heights are all similar. We created a one-dimensional numercal simulation of the nanotopography impact by taking account of the non-Prestonian behavior of the slurry, and good agreement with experiment results was obtained.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2004.07c
• /
• pp.1600-1604
• /
• 2004

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. The effect of alternative commerical slurries pads, and post-CMP cleaning alternatives are discuess, with removal rate, scratch dentisty, surface roughness, dishing, erosion and particulate density used as performance metrics. we investigated the performance of $SnO_2$-CMP process using commonly used silica slurry, ceria slurry, tungsten slurry. This study shows removal rate and nonuniformity of $SnO_2$ thin film used to gas sensor by using Ceria, Silica, W-Slurry after CMP process. This study also shows the relation between partical size and CMP with partical size analysis of used slurry.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.465-470
• /
• 2003

The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been widely used for the global planarization of multi-layer structures in semiconductor manufacturing. The CMP process can be optimized by several parameters such as equipment, consumables (pad, backing film and slurry), process variables and post-CMP cleaning. However, the COO(cost of ownership) is very high, because of high consumable cost. Especially, among the consumables, the slurry dominates more than 40 %. In this paper, we have studied the CMP characteristics of diluted silica slurry by adding of raw alumina abrasives and annealed alumina abrasives. As an experimental result, we obtained the comparable slurry characteristics compared with original silica slurry in the view-point of high removal rate and low non-uniformity. Therefore, we can reduce the cost of consumables(COC) of CMP process for ULSI applications.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.45-49
• /
• 2004

We examined large particles and filter size effects of Central Chemical Supplying (CCS) system for STI-CMP on Light Point Defects (LPDs) after polishing. As manufacturing process recently gets thinner below 0.1 um line width, it is very important to keep down post-CMP micro-scratch and LPDs in case of STI-CMP. Therefore, we must control the size distribution of large particles in a slurry. With optimization of final filter size, CCS system is one of the solutions for this issue. The oxide and nitride CMP tests were accomplished using nano-ceria slurries made by ourselves. The number of large particles in a slurry and the number of LPDs on the wafer surface after CMP were reduced with decrease of the final filter size. Oxide removal rates slightly changed according to the final filter size, showing the good performance of self-made nano ceria slurries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2004.07a
• /
• pp.389-392
• /
• 2004

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. The effect of alternative commerical slurries pads, and post-CMP cleaning alternatives are discuess, with removal rate, scratch dentisty, surface roughness, dishing, erosion and particulate density used as performance metrics. we investigated the performance of $SnO_2$-CMP process using commonly used silica slurry, ceria slurry, tungsten slurry. This study shows removal rate and non-uniformity of $SnO_2$ thin film used to gas sensor by using Ceria, Silica, W-Slurry after CMP process. This study also shows the relation between particle size and CMP with particle size analysis of used slurry.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.276-280
• /
• 2010

Copper(Cu) as an interconnecting metal layer can replace aluminum (Al) in IC fabrication since Cu has low electrical resistivity, showing high immunity to electromigration compared to Al. However, it is very difficult for copper to be patterned by the dry etching processes. The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been introduced and widely used as the mainstream patterning technique for Cu in the fabrication of deep submicron integrated circuits in light of its capability to reduce surface roughness. But this process leaves a large amount of residues on the wafer surface, which must be removed by the post-CMP cleaning processes. Copper corrosion is one of the critical issues for the copper metallization process. Thus, in order to understand the copper corrosion problems in post-CMP cleaning solutions and study the effects of DC biases and post-CMP cleaning solution concentrations on the Cu film, a constant voltage was supplied at various concentrations, and then the output currents were measured and recorded with time. Most of the cases, the current was steadily decreased (i.e. resistance was increased by the oxidation). In the lowest concentration case only, the current was steadily increased with the scarce fluctuations. The higher the constant supplied DC voltage values, the higher the initial output current and the saturated current values. However the time to be taken for it to be saturated was almost the same for all the DC supplied voltage values. It was indicated that the oxide formation was not dependent on the supplied voltage values and 1 V was more than enough to form the oxide. With applied voltages lower than 3 V combined with any concentration, the perforation through the oxide film rarely took place due to the insufficient driving force (voltage) and the copper oxidation ceased. However, with the voltage higher than 3 V, the copper ions were started to diffuse out through the oxide film and thus made pores to be formed on the oxide surface, causing the current to increase and a part of the exposed copper film inside the pores gets back to be oxidized and the rest of it was remained without any further oxidation, causing the current back to decrease a little bit. With increasing the applied DC bias value, the shorter time to be taken for copper ions to be diffused out through the copper oxide film. From the discussions above, it could be concluded that the oxide film was formed and grown by the copper ion diffusion first and then the reaction with any oxidant in the post-CMP cleaning solution.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2003.07a
• /
• pp.370-373
• /
• 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. Chemical-Mechanical Planarization(CMP) of conductors is a key process in Damascene patterning of advanced interconnect structure. The effect of alternative commerical slurries pads, and post-CMP cleaning alternatives are discuess, with removal rate, scratch dentisty, surface roughness, dishing, erosion and particulate density used as performance metrics. Electroplated copper depostion is a mature process from a historical point of view, but a very young process from a CMP persperspective. While copper electrodepostion has been used and stuidied for dacades, its application to Cu damascene wafer processing is only now ganing complete accptance in the semiconductor industry. The polishing mechanism of Cu CMP process has been reported as the repeated process of passive layer formation by oxidizer and abrasion action by slurry abrasives. however it is important to understand the effect of oxidizer on copper pasivation layer in order to obtain higher removal rate and non-uniformity during Cu-CMP process. In this paper, we investigated the effects of oxidizer on Cu-CMP process regarding the additional volume of oxidizer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2004.07a
• /
• pp.20-23
• /
• 2004

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. Chemical-Mechanical polishing(CMP) of conductors is a key process in Damascene patterning of advanced interconnect structure. The effect of alternative commercial slurries pads, and post-CMP cleaning alternatives are discuss, with removal rate, scratch dentisty, surface roughness, dishing, erosion and particulate density used as performance metrics. Electroplated copper deposition is a mature process from a historical point of view, but a very young process from a CMP perspective. While copper electro deposition has been used and studied for decades, its application to Cu damascene wafer processing is only now gaining complete acceptance in the semiconductor industry. The polishing mechanism of Cu-CMP process has been reported as the repeated process of passive layer formation by oxidizer and abrasion action by slurry abrasives. however it is important to understand the effect of oxidizer on copper passivation layer in order to obtain higher removal rate and non-uniformity during Cu-CMP process. In this paper, we investigated the effects of oxidizer on Cu-CMP process regarding the additional volume of oxidizer.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.17-23
• /
• 2002

The more productive and stable fabrication can be obtained by applying chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to shallow trench isolation (STI) structure in 0.18 $\mu\textrm{m}$ semiconductor device. However, STI-CMP process became more complex, and some kinds of defect such as nitride residue, tern oxide defect were seriously increased. Defects like nitride residue and silicon damage after STI-CMP process were discussed to accomplish its optimum process condition. In this paper, we studied how to reduce torn oxide defects and nitride residue after STI-CMP process. To understand its optimum process condition, We studied overall STI-related processes including trench depth, STI-fill thickness and post-CMP thickness. As an experimental result showed that as the STI-fill thickness becomes thinner, and trench depth gets deeper, more tern oxide were found in the CMP process. Also, we could conclude that low trench depth whereas high CMP thickness can cause nitride residue, and high trench depth and over-polishing can cause silicon damage.