• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.13-17
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• 2014

Since the semiconductor manufacturing requires the silicon wafers with extraordinary degree of surface flatness, the surface polishing of wafers from ingot cutting is an important process for deciding surface quality of wafers. The present study introduces the development of wafer polishing equipment and, especially, the wafer polishing head that employs the forced self-driving of installed silicon wafer as well as the wax wafer mounting technique. A series of wafer polishing tests have been carried out to investigate the effects of self-driving function in wafer polishing head. The test results for wafer planarization showed that the LLS counts and SBIR of polished wafer surfaces were generally improved by adopting the self-driven polishing head in wafer polishing stations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.310-317
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• 2013

In this paper, the contact pressure of the wafer and polishing pad for final polishing process for 300 mm-wafer were investigated through numerical analysis using FEM tool, ANSYS. The distribution of the contact pressure is one of main parameters which affects on the flatness and surface roughness of polished wafers. Two types of polishing head, a hard type head with ceramic disk and a soft type head with air bag were considered. The effects of the deformation and initial shape of table on the contact pressure were also examined. Both heads and tables were modeled as 3D finite element model from solid model, and the material properties of polishing pads and rubber plate for the air-bag head were obtained from tensile tests. The contact pressure deviation on wafer surface was smaller with air bag head than hard type head even when the table had form errors such as convex or concave. From this 3D analysis, it could be concluded that the air-bag head has better uniformity of the contact pressure on wafer. Also, the effects of inner diameter of air bag and radial clearance between wafer and retainer were investigated as view point of contact pressure concentration on the edge of wafer.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.44-51
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• 2005

In this paper, a new polishing head with the variable pressure structure was studied to improve the planarization uniformity of the conventional template-metal head. Metal surface waviness and slurry distribution on the pad have been known to affect the polishing uniformity even in the synchronized quill and platen velocities. A polishing head with silicon rubber sheet was used to get a curved pressure distribution. In the experiment, the vertical deflection behavior on the pad was characterized with back pressure in the air chamber. Quill force increased linearly with backpressure. However, backpressure under a quill force made the upward movements of the quill. In the wafer polishing experiments, polishing rate and polishing thickness distribution were severely changed with backpressure. The best uniformity was observed with the standard deviation off.5％ level of average polishing removal 215nm at backpressure 12.1kPa.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.136-139
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• 2004

The requirement of planarity, such as with-in-wafer nonuniformity, post thickness range, have become increasingly stringent as critical dimensions of devices are decreased and a better control of a planarity become important. The key factors influencing the planarity capability of the CMP process have been well understood through numerous related experiments. These usually include parameters such as process pressures, relative velocities, slurry temperature, polishing pad materials and polishing head structure. Many study have been done about polishing pad and its groove structure because it's considered as one of the key factors which can decide wafer uniformity directly. But, not many study have been done about polisher head structure, especially about polisher head plate design. The purpose of this paper is to know how the plate structure can affect wafer uniformity and how to deteriorate wafer yield. Furthermore, we studied several new designed plate to improve wafer uniformity and also improve wafer yield.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.61-66
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• 2016

Total thickness variation (TTV), BOW, and surface roughness are essential characteristics for high quality sapphire substrates. Many researchers have attempted to increase removal rate by controlling the key process parameters like pressure and velocity owing to the high cost of consumables in sapphire chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). In case of the pressure approach, increased pressure owing to higher deviation of pressure over the wafer leads to significant degradation of the TTV. In this study, the authors focused on reducing TTV under the high-pressure conditions. When the production equipment polishes multiple wafers attached on a carrier, higher loads seem to be concentrated around the leading edge of the head; this occurs because of frictional force generated by the combination of table rotation and the height of the gimbal of the polishing head. We believe the skewed pressure distribution during polishing to be the main reason of within-wafer non-uniformity (WIWNU). The insertion of a hub ring between the polishing head and substrate carrier helped reduce the pressure deviation. Adjusting the location of the hub ring enables tuning of the pressure distribution. The results indicated that the position of the hub ring strongly affected the removal profile, which confirmed that the position of the hub ring changes the pressure distribution. Furthermore, we analyzed the deformation of the head via finite element method (FEM) to verify the pressure non-uniformity over the contact area Based on experiment and FEM results, we determined the optimal position of hub ring for achieving uniform polishing of the substrate.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.749-750
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.93-98
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• 2008

We investigated the effect of process temperature on removal rate and non-uniformity based on single head kinematics in oxide CMP. Generally, it has been known that the temperature profile directly transfers to the non~uniformity of removal rate on the wafer, which has similar tendency with the sliding distance of wafer. Experimental results show that platen velocity is a dominant factor in removal rate as well as average temperature. However, the non-uniformity does not coincide between process temperature and removal rate, due to slurry accumulation and low deviation of temperature. Resultantly, the removal rate is strongly dependent on the rotational speed of platen, and its non -uniformity is controlled by the rotational speed of polishing head. It means lower WIWNU (With-in-wafer-non-uniformity) can be achieved in the region of higher head speed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.812-816
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• 2000

It is very important to understand the correlation of between inter dielectric(ILD) CMP process and various facility factors supplied to equipment to equipment system. In this paper, the correlation between the various facility factors supplied to CMP equipment system and ILD-CMP process was studied. To prevent the partial over-polishing(edge hot-spot) generated in the wafer edge area during polishing, we analyze various facilities supplied at supply system. With facility shortage of D.I water(DIW) pressure, we introduced an adding purified $N_2$(P$N_2$)gas in polishing head cleaning station for increasing a cleaning effect. DIW pressure and P$N_2$gas factors were not related with removal rate, but edge hot-spot of patterned wafer had a serious relation. We estimated two factors (DIW pressure and P$N_2$gas) for the improvement of CMP process. Especially, we obtained a uniform planarity in patterned wafer and prohibited more than 90% wafer edge over-polishing. In this study, we acknowledged that facility factors supplied to equipment system played an important role in ILD-CMP process.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2012

The polishing of silicon wafers has an important role in semiconductor manufacturing. Generally, getting a flat surface such as a mirror is the purpose of the process. The wafer surface roughness is affected by many variables such as the characteristics of the carrier head unit, operation, speed, the pad and slurry temperature. Optimum process conditions for experimental temperature, pH value, down-force, slurry ratio are investigated, time is used as a fixed factor. This study carried out a series of experiments at varying platen, chuck rpm and oscillation cpm taking particular note of the difference between the rpm and the affect it has on the surface roughness. In this experiment determine the optimum conditions for polishing silicone wafers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.48-54
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• 2012

In recent years, developments in the semiconductor and electronic industries have brought a rapid increase in the use of large size silicon. However, for many companies, it is hard to produce 400mm or 450mm wafers, because of excesive funds for exchange the equipments. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate 300mm wafer to obtain a better efficiency and a good property rate. Polishing is one of the important methods in manufacturing of Si wafers and in thinning of completed device wafers. This research investigated the surface characteristics that apply variable machining conditions and Taguchi Method was used to obtain more flexible and optimal condition. In this study, the machining conditions have head speed, oscillation speed and polishing time. By using optimum condition, it achieves a ultra precision mirror like surface.