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AssigneeMitsubishi Materials Corporation
InventorsHuey-Ming Wang, Gerard S. Moloney, Scott Chin, John J. Geraghty, William Dyson JR., Tanlin K. Dickey
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The invention provides structure and method for achieving a uniformly polished or planarized substrate such as a semiconductor wafer including achieving substantially uniform polishing between the center of the semiconductor wafer and the edge of the wafer. In one aspect the invention provides a polishing apparatus including a housing, a carrier for mounting a substrate to be polished, a retaining ring circumscribing the carrier for retaining the substrate, a first coupling attaching the retaining ring to the carrier such that the retaining ring may move relative to the carrier, a second coupling attaching the carrier to the housing such that the carrier may move relative to the housing, the housing and the first coupling defining a first pressure chamber to exert a pressure force against the retaining ring, and the housing and the second coupling defining a second pressure chamber to exert a pressure force against the subcarrier. In one embodiment, the couplings are diaphragms. The invention also provides a retaining ring having a special edge profile that assists in smoothing an pre-compressing the polisihng pad to increase polisihng uniformity. A method for polisihing and a semiconductor manufacture is also provided.
A polishing apparatus comprising:
A substrate retaining ring for a polishing machine, said retaining ring comprising:
A method of planarizing a semiconductor wafer, said method including:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.