Semiconductor smoothing apparatus and method

A semiconductor manufacturing method to smooth surfaces of discrete electroconductive pads on a substrate, the method including:

• placing a surface of one of the discrete electroconductive pads in registration with a first chamber of a set of chambers of a smoothing tool, the set corresponding to a smoothing cycle of the smoothing tool;
• effecting an etch, using a reactive gas and within the first chamber, of a surface of one of the discrete electroconductive pads to form an etch layer on the surface;
• placing the surface in registration with a second chamber of the set;
• after the etch, pumping gas away from the surface and the second chamber;
• placing the surface in registration with a third chamber of the set;
• and
• vaporizing the etch layer by applying radiative heating to the surface in the third chamber to smooth the surface thereby generating vaporized etch layer material, vaporizing including reducing a root mean square roughness of the surface as compared with a root mean square roughness thereof in the first chamber.