Memc Electronic Materials, Inc.

Ashley Samuel Hull

Henry Frank Erk

Peter D Albrecht

Alexis Grabbe

Yun-Biao Xin

Guoqiang (David) Zhang

David Louis Vadnais

Mick Bjelopavlic

Michele Haler

A wafer polishing apparatus for polishing a semiconductor wafer. The polisher comprises a base, a turntable, a polishing pad and a head drive mechanism for driven rotation of a polishing head. The polishing head comprises a sealing ring adapted to hold at least one wafer for engaging a front surface of the wafer with a work surface of the polishing pad. The sealing ring allows for application of uniform air pressure over the rear surface of the wafer. The sealing ring is constructed so that the wafer itself defines a portion of a pressure cavity receiving pressurized air.

Polishing apparatus, polishing head and method

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor wafer includes providing an ingot of semiconductor material, slicing the wafer from the ingot, and processing the wafer to increase parallelism of the front surface and the back surface. A final polishing operation on at least the front surface is performed by positioning the wafer between a first pad and a second pad and obtaining motion of the front and back surfaces of the wafer relative to the first and second pads to maintain parallelism of the front and back surfaces and to produce a finish on at least the front surface of the wafer so that the front surface is prepared for integrated circuit fabrication. In another aspect, the wafer is rinsed by a rinsing fluid to increase hydrodynamic lubrication. Other methods are directed to conditioning the polishing pad and to handling wafers after polishing. An apparatus for polishing wafers is also included.

Method and apparatus for processing a semiconductor wafer using novel final polishing method

Growing community of inventors

St. Peters, MO, United States of America

Ashley Samuel Hull