Cabot Microelectronics (United States)

Ceria particles have been widely used in CMP (chemical mechanical planarization) on both STI (shallow trench isolation) and ILD (Inner layer dielectric) applications. For bulk oxide step polishing, high removal rate is always considered to be one of the most important factors. To achieve high removal rate, most ceria slurries are designed to have high solid level. Aggressive CMP conditions are often used during bulk oxide polishing. High solid level and aggressive CMP condition contribute a lot of consumable lifetime issues, such as pad life and conditioner disk decay. High solid level also contributes more chances of scratch count at the end of polishing. To balance high throughput and long consumable lifetime and other pattern wafer CMP performance, we proposed a combo solution for bulk oxide polishing. The polishing slurry is used low solid level ceria slurry and new pad material to achieve the high oxide removal rate.

Tunable silicon nitride to silicon oxide selectivity plays the key role to meet the stringent requirement of poly silicon opening polishing in the advanced HKMG applications. Independent silicon oxide removal rates tuning by surface modified colloidal silica abrasives, specific additives and abrasive loading has been demonstrated, accompanied with high silicon nitride removal rates in acidic slurry pH and unique additive, large selectivity window can be obtained.

In this study, pad surface contact area measurement was performed using laser confocal microscopy at elevated temperatures under dry and static condition to illustrate the effect of temperature on the mechanical contacts in chemical mechanical planarization. Pad surface contact area and contact density were measured for a Cabot Microelectronics Corporation D100 pad sample at 27.6 kPa with a custom-made sample holder that was designed to heat the pad sample during the measurement. When the pad surface temperature increased from 25 to 45°C, pad asperities became much softer and resulted in a significant increase (from 0.029% to 0.092%) in the pad contact area percentage while the contact density remained in the same range.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to implement a value stream map (VSM) in a lean environment by automating the collection and distribution of production data. This on‐line RFID‐based facility performance monitoring (ORFPM) system for manufacturing environments combines RFID technology and wireless internet to track movement of material and then provide the user with a real‐time VSM, even if they are not able to supervise the production flow in the facility.Design/methodology/approachTo ensure the ORFPM system operates well in the industrial environment, two sets of laboratory layouts are simulated, one being a job shop and the other being a cellular layout.FindingsThe results indicate that the system is able to successfully transmit data via wireless Internet, develop a database for transportation time and lead time, and automatically generate a real‐time VSM.Originality/valueThis proposed system is able to use RFID technology to track the material flow in production systems, automatically generating and providing VSM to users with real time data and then allowing users to remotely supervise the performance of their production facility.

Transmission electron microscopy has been used to evaluate the primary particle size distributions and aggregate structure of a fumed silica sample. The primary particle size distribution within an individual aggregate is narrow, with a geometric standard deviation of ∼ 1.2. The distributions of maximum diameters, projected areas, and average primary particle diameters were all skewed, and all were better described by a log-normal distribution than a normal distribution. The data confirmed the fractal description of the fumed silica aggregate structure, with a mass fractal dimension of 1.86. The fractal prefactor or lacunarity was evaluated from the aggregate volume and the maximum particle dimension, and found to have a value of 0.83 for this sample.

Abstract The mechanism of haze reduction during silicon polishing using a new generation of additives has been explored. These additives are thought to decrease haze by adsorbing to the wafer surface and increasing the activation energy of the reaction between the silanolates on the silica particle surface with the surface silicon. This leads to greater selectivity between the peaks and valleys resulting in a net decrease in surface roughness.

The physical and tribological attributes of the chemical mechanical planarization (CMP)process are reviewed. Kinematic analysis of a CMP polisher is described, which can beapplied in establishing tribological models. These models elucidate the lubrication regimesat the workpiece/polishing pad interface at the macroscale in order to examine the regionaluniformity in the amount of material removed. At the micro/nanoscale, the materialremoval and planarization mechanisms are mainly discussed from the theoretical andmodeling perspective together with experimental verification provided using scanningprobe microscopy (SPM) techniques. Selected CMP applications in the field ofmicro/nanoelectromechanical system (MEMS/NEMS) are also highlighted in conjunctionwith fabrication processes and tribological challenges at the sub-nanometer scale.