Apparatus for controlling wafer temperature in chemical mechanical polishing

Apparatus for controlling local planarization properties on a wafer during the performance of a chemical mechanical polishing operation on the wafer, the apparatus comprising:

• a wafer carrier;
• a thermal energy transfer unit on the wafer carrier for transferring energy relative to the wafer, the thermal energy transfer unit having a plurality of separate thermal energy transfer sections, each of the separate sections being spaced along and intersecting a common diameter of the wafer;
• and
• a thermal energy detector system adjacent to the wafer for separately detecting a temperature of each location on the wafer at which the common diameter intersects the separate sections of the thermal energy transfer unit.

Apparatus for controlling the temperature of a wafer for chemical mechanical polishing operations, the apparatus comprising:

• a wafer carrier having a wafer mounting surface;
• a thermal energy transfer unit adjacent to the wafer mounting surface for transferring energy relative to the wafer, the thermal energy transfer unit being configured with separate sections, each of the sections being configured to transfer the thermal energy to a different part of a wafer surface that is along a given diameter of the wafer, each of the sections being intersected by the given diameter, the sections collectively establishing a thermal gradient across the diameter of the wafer;
• a thermal energy detector unit adjacent to the wafer mounting surface, the thermal energy detector comprising separate detectors along the given diameter and adjacent to each of the intersections of the given diameter and the separate sections of the thermal energy transfer unit for detecting the temperatures of the thermal gradient established by the separate sections;
• and
• a controller responsive to the separate detectors of the detector unit for controlling the transfer of thermal energy relative to the separate sections of the thermal energy transfer unit to control the temperatures of the thermal gradient.