Chemical mechanical polishing conditioner

A conditioner head for conditioning a polishing surface of a polishing pad, comprising:

• an abrasive disk having a lower surface defining a disk plane;
• a driven element carried for rotation about a longitudinal axis;
• and
• a disk backing element to carry the disk, hold it in engagement with the polishing pad and apply force and torque to it, the disk backing element including:
• an upper member fixed to the driven element and having a central downward facing socket having a spherical surface portion;
• a lower member fixed to the abrasive disk, and having a central upward facing projection having a spherical surface portion in sliding engagement with the spherical surface portion of the socket;
• and
• at least one resilient member, coupling the upper member to the lower member so as to bias the lower member toward a neutral orientation wherein the disk plane is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, while permitting tilting of the disk plane relative to the longitudinal axis and transmitting rotation from the driven element to the disk, said tilting causing relative sliding of the respective spherical surface portions of the projection and socket.

A conditioner head for conditioning a polishing surface of a polishing pad, comprising:

• a driven element for rotating an abrasive disk having a surface defining a disk plane about a longitudinal axis so as to apply a force and a torque to the disk as it engages the polishing pad;
• a first member fixed to the driven element and having a socket having a concave surface portion;
• a second member having a projection having a convex surface portion in sliding engagement with the concave surface portion of the socket;
• and
• at least one resilient member coupling the first member to the second member so as to bias the second member toward an orientation wherein the disk plane is substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, while permitting tilting of the disk plane relative to the longitudinal axis and transmitting rotation from the driven element to the disk, said tilting causing relative sliding of the respective convex and concave surface portions of the projection and socket.

A conditioner head for conditioning a polishing surface of a polishing pad using an abrasive conditioning disk, comprising:

• a drive element carried for rotation about a longitudinal axis;
• and
• a disk backing element for holding and applying force and torque to the abrasive conditioning disk, including:
• a central hub fixed to the drive element;
• an outer rim generally defining a rim plane;
• and
• a plurality of radially extending spokes extending from the central hub to the outer rim, each said spoke upwardly and downwardly flexible for permitting tilting of the rim plane relative to the longitudinal axis while transmitting rotation from the drive element to the rim to apply torque to the conditioning disk.