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US 6,270,396 B1Granted
Conditioning apparatus and conditioning method
AssigneeCanon Kabushika Kaisha
InventorShinzo Uchiyama
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus and a method are provided for uniformly conditioning a polishing pad over the entire surface. The conditioning is achieved by contacting the entire polishing surface of the polishing pad with a polishing pad conditioner having a surface area larger than that of the polishing pad.
Claims30
A conditioning apparatus comprising:
- a polishing head for supporting a polishing pad;
- polishing pad condition support means for supporting a polishing pad conditioner having a conditioning surface with an area larger than that of a polishing surface of said polishing pad;
- contacting means for contacting said polishing pad supported by said polishing head and said polishing pad conditioner supported by said polishing pad condition support means;
- and
- polished-member support means for supporting a member to be polished having a diameter smaller than a diameter of said polishing pad.
2 more elements
A conditioning method comprising the steps of:
- conditioning a polishing pad by contacting the polishing pad and a polishing pad conditioner having a conditioning surface with an area larger than that of a polishing surface of the polishing pad;
- and
- polishing, by the polishing pad, a member to be polished having a diameter smaller than a diameter of the polishing pad.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.