Condensed gas pad conditioner
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsJeonghoon Oh, Steven M. Zuniga, Brian J. Brown
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A polishing system including a platen to support a polishing pad, a carrier head to hold a substrate against the polishing pad, a source of dry ice particles, and a pad conditioner. The pad conditioner includes a compressor to generate a compressed gas stream, a mixer coupled to the source and the compressor to mix the dry ice particles with the compressed gas stream to form a stream of compressed gas with entrained dry ice particles, and a nozzle coupled to the mixer to direct the stream of compressed gas with entrained dry ice particles onto a polishing surface of the polishing pad at sufficient velocity to condition the polishing pad.
Claims19
A polishing system, comprising:
- a platen to support a polishing pad;
- a carrier head to hold a substrate against the polishing pad;
- a shredder configured to shred dry ice to form dry ice particles;
- and
- a pad conditioner including a compressor to generate a compressed gas stream, a drier to remove excess water from the compressed gas stream, a mixer coupled to the shredder and the drier to mix the dry ice particles with the compressed gas stream from the drier to form a stream of compressed gas with entrained dry ice particles, a strainer coupled to the mixer to block a portion of the entrained dry ice particles above a threshold size to form a stream of compressed gas with strained entrained dry ice particle, and a conditioner nozzle coupled to the strainer to direct the stream of compressed gas with the strained entrained dry ice particles onto a polishing surface of the polishing pad at sufficient velocity to condition the polishing pad.
A method of conditioning a polishing pad, comprising:
- drawing a stream of air to form a stream of compressed air;
- removing excess water from the stream of compressed air;
- mixing dry ice particles with the stream of compressed air to form a stream of compressed gas with entrained dry ice particles;
- directing the stream of compressed gas with entrained dry ice particles through a strainer to block a portion of the entrained dry ice particles above a threshold size to form a stream of compressed gas with strained entrained dry ice particle;
- and
- directing the stream of compressed gas with the strained entrained dry ice particles through a nozzle onto a polishing surface of the polishing pad at sufficient velocity to condition the polishing pad.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.