Determining substrate orientation with acoustic signals
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsNicholas A. Wiswell, Benjamin Cherian, Jun Qian, Thomas H. Osterheld
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Abstract
A chemical mechanical polishing apparatus includes a platen to support a polishing pad, a carrier head to hold a surface of a substrate against the polishing pad, a motor to generate relative motion between the platen and the carrier head so as to polish an overlying layer on the substrate, an in-situ acoustic monitoring system comprising an acoustic sensor that receives acoustic signals from the surface of the substrate, and a controller configured to determine a angular orientation of the substrate based on received acoustic signals from the in-situ acoustic monitoring system.
Claims20
A chemical mechanical polishing apparatus, comprising:
- a platen to support a polishing pad;
- a carrier head to hold a surface of a substrate against the polishing pad;
- a motor to generate relative motion between the platen and the carrier head so as to polish an overlying layer on the substrate;
- an in-situ acoustic monitoring system comprising an acoustic sensor that receives acoustic signals from the surface of the substrate;
- and
- a controller configured to determine an angular orientation of the substrate based on received acoustic signals from the in-situ acoustic monitoring system.
A method comprising:
- bringing a substrate into contact with a polishing pad;
- generating relative motion between the substrate and the polishing pad to polish an overlying layer on the substrate;
- monitoring acoustic signals from the surface of the substrate with an acoustic sensor;
- and
- determining an angular orientation of the substrate based on the monitored acoustic signals.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.