Pad cleaning method
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsRashid A. Mavliev, Hung Chih Chen
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Abstract
A method for cleaning a polishing pad is disclosed. In CMP and ECMP, a polishing pad must be conditioned to obtain good and predictable polishing results. During conditioning, debris is generated that must be removed to prevent processing defects. An effective method to clean a polishing pad is disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a washing fluid is directed at the pad to clean debris from the while a second fluid is utilized to remove the washing fluid. In another embodiment, the washing fluid is provided by a high pressure water jet while the second fluid is provided by an air knife.
Claims9
An apparatus for cleaning a polishing pad comprising:
- a rotatable platen;
- a polishing pad disposed on the platen;
- an upstream director for directing polishing fluid off of the polishing pad;
- an air jet mounted on a first delivery arm pivotable over said polishing pad, the air jet separate from the upstream director;
- a water jet mounted on a second delivery arm positioned over said polishing pad;
- and
- a rotatable conditioning disc for conditioning the polishing pad, the rotatable conditioning disc coupled with the second delivery arm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.