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PSA CHALLENGES AND APPLICATIONS IN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING

Laurent Vésier, Senior Quality Engineer
Jason Lawhorn, Product Engineering Technician
George Feeley, Senior Materials Engineer

Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials CMP Technologies, Newark, DE

Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) is used increasingly in today's semiconductor chips' manufacturing. CMP was first used for polishing Tungsten interconnects and Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) inter layers. Currently, CMP is an enabling technology in the manufacture of semiconductor chips, including the more advanced devices using Copper and new dielectric materials. The CMP process requires a polishing pad and slurry combination to planarize wafers used in the construction of semiconductor devices. (Figure 1 represents a wafer planarization step with a polishing pad). Adhesives are used in providing adherence between layers of the polishing pad and to adhere the pad to the rotating table.

Economic trends in matured parts of the CMP process also require increased consumables lifetime and, therefore, reduced failures of the adhesive layers with increased pad life. Long term reliability of the adhesives in demanding liquid environments (high temperatures, low pH) is, therefore, a constant expectation.