Chemical mechanical planarization consumables

Chemical-Mechanical Planarization involves often-conflicting requirements at various length scales—e.g. uniform removal at the wafer scale, but non-uniform removal of high areas to achieve planarization at the feature scale. In conjunction with machine process controls, the management of pressure by the consumables is one key to balancing these requirements. 

J. Schlueter, I. Kim, F. J. Krupa, The Effect of Consumables in the Development of Advanced Shallow Trench Isolation (STI) CMP Processes, Proceedings of Chemical-Mechanical Planarization for ULSI Multilevel Interconnection Conference (CMP-MIC), 1999, pp.336-339... 

The chemical-mechanical polishing or planarization (CMP) process is a complex interplay between the wafer and the consumables involved. The consumables include slurry, pad, conditioner, and so on. During polishing, the pad carries the slurry and delivers it to the wafer surface. It also transmits the normal and shear forces from the polisher to the wafer. Therefore, polishing pad plays a critical role in the CMP process and influences the outcomes such as material removal rate (MRR), within-wafer nonuniformity (WIWNU), wafer-to-wafer nonuniformity (WTWNU), step height reduction efficiency (SHRE), and defect counts. 

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