A STUDY ON CONTACT MECHANISM AND CMP ACTION OF POLISHING PAD

今天，与高度集成的IC和LSI相关的计算机的迅速普及，给我们的生活带来了巨大的变化，进入了信息社会。集成电路和大规模集成电路的生产有赖于微细加工技术的发展。化学机械抛光是在硅片上用大马士革抛光法生产IC和LSI多层电路所必需的典型工艺，每一层电路的表面都必须非常光滑。目前生产过程中对抛光表面平整度的要求是小于100Å。化学机械抛光是一种主要研究抛光平坦化的抛光技术，但由溶胶-凝胶法制成的抛光垫和抛光剂的抛光机理尚不完全清楚。在这项研究中，我们使用抛光性能，如原料去除，表面粗糙度及其相关性作为基础评价，以研究抛光作用点。因此，我们估计抛光作用点的数量是有限的和稳定的。随着抛光力的增加，我们估计作用点数会增加。最后得出抛光垫的表面纹理、柔韧性等物理性能将在化学机械抛光过程中起重要作用的结论，因为抛光垫与工作表面的接触点是化学机械抛光的作用点，而抛光垫的物理性能直接影响抛光垫的物理性能。

Today, the drastic change of our life to the information society has been brought by the rapid popularization of computers, which are associated with highly integrated IC and LSI. The production of IC and LSI depends upon the development of micro-precision processing technologies. Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) is the typical technology necessary for producing multi-layer circuits of IC and LSI by the damascene method on a silicon wafer, where surface of each circuit layer must be made to be perfectly smooth. The required flatness for the surface finished by CMP in production process would be now less than 100 Å.CMP is polishing technology concerning mainly with the planarization, but the polishing mechanism made by polishing pad and agent manufactured by the sol-gel method has not completely made clear yet. In this study we were using the polishing properties such as stock removal, surface roughness and their correlation as a basis valuation to investigate the polishing acting point. As a result, we estimated that the number of polishing acting point is limited and stable. When the polishing force is increased we estimate the acting point number would increase. We observed the increase of the polishing acting point number which should cause by the amount of material in polishing.Finally, we get to the conclusion that physical properties of polishing pad such as surface texture, flexibility, etc., would play an important role in CMP process because contact points of the pad with the work surface, which are the action point of CMP, are directly influenced by he physical properties of the pad.