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US 9,457,520 B2Granted
Apparatus for printing a chemical mechanical polishing pad
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsRajeev Bajaj, Barry Lee Chin, Terrance Y. Lee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of fabricating a polishing layer of a polishing pad includes successively depositing a plurality of layers with a 3D printer, each layer of the plurality of polishing layers deposited by ejecting a pad material precursor from a nozzle and solidifying the pad material precursor to form a solidified pad material.
Claims16
An apparatus for fabricating a polishing layer of a polishing pad, comprising:
- a supply of liquid polishing pad material precursor that becomes a polishing pad material upon curing;
- a 3D printer including a nozzle and configured to successively deposit a plurality of layers to form the polishing layer on a support by ejecting droplets of the pad material precursor without a powder;
- a computer coupled to the 3D printer and configured to control the 3D printer to deposit a first layer of the plurality of layers by ejecting droplets of the pad material precursor from the nozzle onto the support and to deposit each subsequent layer of the plurality layers by ejecting droplets of the pad material precursor from the nozzle directly onto an underlying layer of solidified polishing pad material without a layer of powder;
- and
- a UV radiation source to cure the pad material precursor to solidify the liquid polishing pad material precursor so as to form the polishing pad material.
2 more elements
An apparatus for fabricating a polishing pad, comprising:
- a support to hold a plurality of layers of the polishing pad;
- a 3D printer including a nozzle and configured to successively deposit the plurality of layers over the support to form the polishing pad by ejecting droplets of a pad material precursor;
- a computer coupled to the 3D printer and configured to control the 3D printer to cause the 3D printer to form a backing layer of the polishing pad by successively depositing a first plurality of layers by ejecting droplets of a backing layer precursor from the nozzle and to form a polishing layer of the polishing pad by successively depositing a second plurality of layers with the 3D printer over the first plurality of layers by ejecting droplets of a polishing layer precursor from the nozzle, the wherein the backing layer precursor is a same precursor as the polishing layer precursor;
- and
- means for curing configured to cure the backing layer precursor by a different degree than the polishing layer precursor such that the backing layer is softer than the polishing layer.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.