Polishing tool and method
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsTe-Chien Hou, Chi-hsiang Shen, Chen-Chi Tang, Shich-Chang Suen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Provided is a polishing tool and a methods for polishing a wafer or manufacturing a semiconductor device. A method for polishing a wafer includes contacting a surface of the wafer to a polishing pad at an interface; rotating the wafer and/or the pad; and delivering a series of selected treatment agents to the interface and removing waste from the interface through channels extending through the pad, while controlling a rate of delivering the selected polishing agents and removing the waste streams through the channels formed in the pad to optimize polishing of the wafer.
Claims20
A polishing tool comprising:
- a rotatable platen having a first platen channel and a second platen channel;
- a polishing pad positioned over the rotatable platen, the polishing pad having a top surface and a bottom surface, a first pad channel extending from the bottom surface to the top surface, and a second pad channel extending from the bottom surface to the top surface, wherein the first pad channel is aligned with the first platen channel and the second pad channel is aligned with the second platen channel;
- a treatment agent source in fluid communication with the top surface of the polishing pad through the first platen channel and the first pad channel;
- a vacuum source in fluid communication with the top surface of the polishing pad through the second platen channel and the second pad channel;
- and
- a polishing head configured to move a workpiece into and out of contact with the top surface of the polishing pad.
A polishing pad comprising:
- a body having a top surface and a bottom surface;
- a first set of channels extending from the bottom surface to the top surface, the first set of channels configured to deliver a treatment agent to the top surface;
- and
- a second set of channels extending from the bottom surface to the top surface, the second set of channels being separate from the first set of channels and configured to remove waste from the top surface via vacuum.
A method for polishing a workpiece, the method comprising:
- contacting a surface of the workpiece to a polishing pad at an interface;
- delivering a treatment agent to the interface through a plurality of groups of channels in the polishing pad, wherein each group of channels is positioned at a different location in the polishing pad to deliver the treatment agent to a corresponding zone of the surface of the workpiece;
- and
- independently controlling a flow rate of the treatment agent delivered through each group of channels to the corresponding zone of the surface of the workpiece.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.