Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) is an essential process for device integration and planarization in a semiconductor manufacturing process. The most critical function in the CMP process, is to predict and cover the geometrical characteristics of various sizes and densities, of patterned wafers for local and global planarization. To achieve the wafer-level and die-level planarization, it is necessary to understand the contact mechanism between the CMP pads and the macro-scale patterns. In the macro-scale pattern, pad deformation is divided into two layers: an asperity layer and a bulk pad layer. Through bulk pad deformation, asperity contact distribution within the pattern is predicted. In this paper, the distribution of asperity contact according to the pattern geometrical characteristics was analyzed, through large-area real contact area (RCA) measurement. Bulk pad deformation was predicted by analyzing RCA distribution according to pattern geometry such as pattern size and density, pattern shape and step height according to the polishing time, and applied pressure. Additionally, through the distribution of the contact area and the number of contact points, the rounding phenomenon and planarization characteristics in the pattern CMP were predicted.

Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) is an essential process for flattening the surface of the wafer to produce a fine structure. The CMP process is performed after a break-in step prior to optimizing the polishing pad. Break-in consists of the conditioning step and warming-up step. In the conditioning step, a conditioner embedded with diamonds is used to remove residues from the pad surface and manages the directionality and height deviation of asperities on the surface. The warming-up step serves to increase the temperature of the pad surface by polishing multiple wafers. The temperature in the warming-up step is raised due to friction between the wafer and pad, and the pad state is divided into a partly warmed up section, a transition section, and a fully warmed up section of the pad. In this study, as the wafer pressure increased in the warm-up stage, the time for the pad to reach the stable section was confirmed, and the break-in mechanism was analyzed in terms of surface characteristics and mechanical properties, such as surface photograph, surface roughness of the pad, and elastic modulus of pad asperities. Based on these results, the break-in mechanism that increases the material removal rate was analyzed.