DIAMOND DISC PAD CONDITIONING IN CHEMICAL MECHANICAL PLANARIZATION (CMP): A MATHEMATICAL MODEL TO PREDICT PAD SURFACE SHAPE

摘要

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is widely used to planarize semiconductor wafers and smooth the wafer surface. In CMP, a diamond disc conditioner is used to condition (or dress) a polishing pad to restore the pad performance. In this paper, a surface element method is proposed to develop a mathematic model to predict the pad surface shape resulted from diamond disc conditioning. The developed model is then validated by published experimental data. Results show that the model is effective to simulate the diamond disc conditioning process and predict the pad surface shape.