Abrading – Abrading process – Glass or stone abrading
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-11
2002-09-03
Nguyen, George (Department: 3723)
Abrading
Abrading process
Glass or stone abrading
C451S060000, C451S285000, C451S287000, C451S446000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06443810
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to a polishing platen for holding a polishing pad thereon in a polishing apparatus and a method for using the platen and more particularly, relates to a polishing platen that is equipped with a guard ring for a chemical mechanical polishing apparatus and a method for conserving slurry usage during a chemical mechanical polishing process by using a guard ring.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Apparatus for polishing thin, flat semiconductor wafers is well-known in the art. Such apparatus normally includes a polishing head which carries a membrane for engaging and forcing a semiconductor wafer against a wetted polishing surface, such as a polishing pad. Either the pad, or the polishing head rotates and oscillates the wafer over the polishing surface. The polishing head is forced downwardly onto the polishing surface by a pressurized air system or by a similar arrangement. The downward force pressing the polishing head against the polishing surface can be adjusted as desired. The polishing head is typically mounted on an elongated pivoting carrier arm, which can move the pressure head between several operative positions. In one operative position, the carrier arm positions a wafer mounted on the pressure head in contact with the polishing pad. In order to remove the wafer from contact with the polishing surface, the carrier arm is first pivoted upwardly to lift the pressure head and wafer from the polishing surface. The carrier arm is then pivoted laterally to move the pressure head and wafer carried by the pressure head to an auxiliary wafer processing station. The auxiliary processing station may include, for example, a station for cleaning the wafer and/or polishing head; a wafer unload station; or, a wafer load station.
More recently, chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) apparatus has been employed in combination with a pneumatically actuated polishing head. CMP apparatus is used primarily for polishing the front face or device side of a semiconductor wafer during the fabrication of semiconductor devices on the wafer. A wafer is “planarized” or smoothed one or more times during a fabrication process in order for the top surface of the wafer to be as flat as possible. A wafer is polished by being placed on a carrier and pressed face down onto a polishing pad covered with a slurry of colloidal silica or alumina in de-ionized water.
A schematic of a typical CMP apparatus is shown in
FIGS. 1A and 1B
. The apparatus
10
for chemical mechanical polishing consists of a rotating wafer holder
14
that holds the wafer
10
, the appropriate slurry
24
, and a polishing pad
12
which is normally mounted to a rotating table
26
by adhesive means. The polishing pad
12
is applied to the wafer surface
22
at a specific pressure. The chemical mechanical polishing method can be used to provide a planar surface on dielectric layers, on deep and shallow trenches that are filled with polysilicon or oxide, and on various metal films. CMP polishing results from a combination of chemical and mechanical effects. A possible mechanism for the CMP process involves the formation of a chemically altered layer at the surface of the material being polished. The layer is mechanically removed from the underlying bulk material. An altered layer is then regrown on the surface while the process is repeated again. For instance, in metal polishing a metal oxide may be formed and removed repeatedly.
A polishing pad is typically constructed in two layers overlying a platen with the resilient layer as the outer layer of the pad. The layers are typically made of polyurethane and may include a filler for controlling the dimensional stability of the layers. The polishing pad is usually several times the diameter of a wafer and the wafer is kept off-center on the pad to prevent polishing a non-planar surface onto the wafer. The wafer is also rotated to prevent polishing a taper into the wafer. Although the axis of rotation of the wafer and the axis of rotation of the pad are not collinear, the axes must be parallel. It is known in the art that uniformity in wafer polishing is a function of pressure, velocity and the concentration of chemicals. Edge exclusion is caused, in part, by non-uniform pressure on a wafer. The problem is reduced somewhat through the use of a retaining ring which engages the polishing pad.
Referring now to
FIG. 1C
, wherein an improved CMP head, sometimes referred to as a Titan® head which differs from conventional CMP heads in two major respects is shown. First, the Titan® head employs a compliant wafer carrier and second, it utilizes a mechanical linkage (not shown) to constrain tilting of the head, thereby maintaining planarity relative to a polishing pad
12
, which in turn allows the head to achieve more uniform flatness of the wafer during polishing. The wafer
10
has one entire face thereof engaged by a flexible membrane
16
, which biases the opposite face of the wafer
10
into face-to-face engagement with the polishing pad
12
. The polishing head and/or pad
12
are moved relative to each other, in a motion to effect polishing of the wafer
10
. The polishing head includes an outer retaining ring
14
surrounding the membrane
16
, which also engages the polishing pad
12
and functions to hold the head in a steady, desired position during the polishing process. As shown in
FIG. 1C
, both the retaining ring
14
and the membrane
16
are urged downwardly toward the polishing pad
12
by a linear force indicated by the numeral
18
which is effected through a pneumatic system.
In the polishing operation shown in
FIG. 1B
, the slurry solution
24
must be pushed into an interface between the wafer
10
and the polishing pad
12
in order for the chemical reaction and the mechanical removal process to operate efficiently. Since the surface of a silicon wafer is a hard surface and the surface of the polishing pad is normally formed of densely packed fibers, it is difficult to ensure an abundant supply of the slurry solution at the interface between the wafer and the polishing pad. Various techniques have been proposed to improve the supply of the slurry solution into the interface and to conserve the usage of slurry solution. Two of such techniques are shown in
FIGS. 2A
,
2
B,
3
A and
3
B.
FIGS. 2A and 2B
show a technique in which a perforated polishing pad
28
is utilized. The perforated polishing pad
28
is formed with a multiplicity of perforations
30
through the pad thickness. As shown in
FIG. 2B
, typically, a perforation having a diameter of 0.075 in. and a height of 0.05 in. (i.e. through the complete thickness of the hard pad
32
) is used. Alternatively, a more popularly used technique is to provide a grooved polishing pad
34
as shown in FIG.
3
A. In the grooved polishing pad
34
, grooves
36
are provided in a surface layer
38
of the hard pad. As shown in
FIG. 3B
, a typical groove is formed with a width of 0.01 in. and a depth of 0.015 in., while the groove-to-groove distance is about 0.06 in. It should be noted that the perforations
30
and the grooves
36
are formed only through or in the hard pad layer and not into the soft pad layer.
While the perforated pad or the grooved pad shown in FIGS.
2
A~
3
B provides some improvement over conventional polishing pads that have no surface modifications, the improvement is limited in the uniformity of the surface polishing and in the slurry consumption.
Another method for improving the polishing efficiency and conserving slurry consumption has been disclosed in a co-pending application Ser. No. 09/366,233 filed Aug. 3, 1999 and assigned to the common assignee of the present application, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In application Ser. No. 09/366,233, shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B, therein is provided a slotted retaining ring 40 adapted for holding a CMP polishing head. The retaining ring 40 includes a torroidal ring member 44 that has parallely situated planer top surface 48 and bottom surface 46. The torroidal ring member
Nguyen George
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
Tung & Associates
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