Coverage Rules and Insertion Utilities

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The planarization process by chemical mechanical polishing supports both the front-end-of-line and back-end-of-line. Dedicated rules are set to support and enhance the process window. During design, dummies are inserted manually and by dedicated utilities for the same purpose. The third type of planarization is for the replaced metal gate integration first introduced by foundries at 28 nm technology with HK/MG. Dummies are inserted to support the planarization and increase the local density. Different dummy fill methods were used along the technology nodes. The insertion should take into consideration the tight alignment requirements of the tile to the fins, DP integration, voltage-aware design. In a CMP process, the wafer is pressed on a polymer-based pad and is polished by a slurry, that contains both active chemicals and abrasive particles. In general, the process of removing material from the wafer surface is based on a combination of mechanical energy induced from the polish head and abrasives and chemical reactions from the slurry.