CMP

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is a powerful fabrication technique that uses chemical oxidation and mechanical abrasion to remove material and achieve very high levels of planarity.

Chemical mechanical planarization has been widely applied to selectively remove materials for topography planarization and device structure formation in semiconductor manufacturing. The selective material removal is achieved by using chemical reaction and mechanical abrasion with slurries containing unique chemical formulations and large numbers of abrasive particles. During polishing, chemical reaction products and mechanical wear debris are generated. Slurry particles and polishing byproducts are pressed onto wafer surface. During wafer transferring from polisher to cleaner, contaminants are adhered onto wafer surface. Post-CMP cleaning is required to remove particles, organic residues, and metallic contaminants from wafers with different surface, chemical, and mechanical properties in various geometric features, without generating scratches, water marks, surface roughness, corrosion, and dielectric constant shift.