Applied Materials, Inc.

Doyle E Bennett

Boguslaw A Swedek

Kun Xu

Thomas H Osterheld

Benjamin Cherian

Hassan G Iravani

Jeffrey Drue David

Harry Q Lee

Jun Qian

Wen-Chiang Tu

Ingemar Carlsson

Shih-Haur Shen

Tzu-Yu Liu

Kiran Lall Shrestha

David Maxwell Gage

Fred Conrad Redeker

Brian J Brown

Jimin Zhang

Manoocher Birang

Hung Chih Chen

Dominic J Benvegnu

Andrew J Nagengast

Madhavi R Chandrachood

David J Lischka

Robert D Tolles

Alain Duboust

Arulkumar P Shanmugasundram

Benjamin A Bonner

Ginetto Addiego

James C Nystrom

Steven M Zuniga

Stan D Tsai

Jay D Pinson, Ii

Boris Fishkin

Charles C Garretson

Yuchun Wang

Nils Johansson

Sivakumar Dhandapani

Gopalakrishna B Prabhu

Gregory E Menk

Allen L D'Ambra

Sidney P Huey

Kapila P Wijekoon

Jagan Rangarajan

Thomas Li

Denis Ivanov

Nitin Shah

Peter McKeever

Dirk De Roover

Sandeep R Koppikar

Ginnetto Addiego

Paul Flores

A method of compensating for a contribution of conductivity of the semiconductor wafer to a measured trace by an in-situ electromagnetic induction monitoring system includes storing or generating a modified reference trace. The modified reference trace represents measurements of a bare doped reference semiconductor wafer by an in-situ electromagnetic induction monitoring system as modified by a neutral network. The substrate is monitored with an in-situ electromagnetic induction monitoring system to generate a measured trace that depends on a thickness of the conductive layer, and at least a portion of the measured trace is applied to a neural network to generate a modified measured trace. An adjusted trace is generated, including subtracting the modified reference trace from the modified measured trace.

Compensation for substrate doping in edge reconstruction for in-situ electromagnetic inductive monitoring

A method of polishing a substrate includes polishing a conductive layer on the substrate at a polishing station, monitoring the layer with an in-situ eddy current monitoring system to generate a plurality of measured signals values for a plurality of different locations on the layer, generating thickness measurements the locations, and detecting a polishing endpoint or modifying a polishing parameter based on the thickness measurements. The conductive layer is formed of a first material having a first conductivity. Generating includes calculating initial thickness values based on the plurality of measured signals values and processing the initial thickness values through a neural network that was trained using training data acquired by measuring calibration substrates having a conductive layer formed of a second material having a second conductivity that is lower than the first conductivity to generated adjusted thickness values.

Technique for training neural network for use in in-situ monitoring during polishing and polishing system

Trained neural network in in-situ monitoring during polishing and polishing system

Using a trained neural network for use in in-situ monitoring during polishing and polishing system

A method of controlling polishing includes polishing a substrate at a first polishing station, monitoring the substrate with a first eddy current monitoring system to generate a first signal, determining an ending value of the first signal for an end of polishing of the substrate at the first polishing station, determining a first temperature at the first polishing station, polishing the substrate at a second polishing station, monitoring the substrate with a second eddy current monitoring system to generate a second signal, determining a starting value of the second signal for a start of polishing of the substrate at the second polishing station, determining a gain for the second polishing station based on the ending value, the starting value and the first temperature, and calculating a third signal based on the second signal and the gain.

Determination of gain for eddy current sensor

Among other things, a method of controlling polishing during a polishing process is described. The method includes receiving a measurement of a thickness, thick(t), of a conductive layer of a substrate undergoing polishing from an in-situ monitoring system at a time t; receiving a measured temperature, T(t), associated with the conductive layer at the time t; calculating resistivity &#x3c1;of the conductive layer at the measured temperature T(t); adjusting the measurement of the thickness using the calculated resistivity &#x3c1;to generate an adjusted measured thickness; and detecting a polishing endpoint or an adjustment for a polishing parameter based on the adjusted measured thickness.

Adjusting eddy current measurements

In one aspect, a method of controlling polishing includes receiving a measurement of an initial thickness of a conductive film on a first substrate prior to polishing the first substrate from an in-line or stand-alone monitoring system, polishing one or more substrates in a polishing system, the one or more substrates including the first substrate, during polishing of the one or more substrates, monitoring the one or more substrates with an eddy current monitoring system to generate a first signal, determining a starting value of the first signal for a start of polishing of the first substrate, determining a gain based on the starting value and the measurement of the initial thickness, for at least a portion of the first signal collected during polishing of at least one substrate of the one or more substrates, and calculating a second signal based on the first signal and the gain.

A polishing apparatus includes a plurality of stations supported on a platform, the plurality of stations including at least two polishing stations and a transfer station, each polishing station including a platen to support a polishing pad, a plurality of carrier heads suspended from and movable along a track such that each polishing station is selectively positionable at the stations, and a controller configured to control motion of the carrier heads along the track such that during polishing at each polishing station only a single carrier head is positioned in the polishing station.

Multi-platen multi-head polishing architecture

A method of controlling polishing includes polishing a substrate, monitoring the substrate during polishing with an in-situ spectrographic monitoring system to generate a sequence of measured spectra, selecting less than all of the measured spectra to generate a sequence of selected spectra, generating a sequence of values from the sequence of selected spectra, and determining at least one of a polishing endpoint or an adjustment for a polishing rate based on the sequence of values.

Endpointing with selective spectral monitoring

A method of chemical mechanical polishing a substrate includes polishing a layer on the substrate at a polishing station, monitoring the layer during polishing at the polishing station with an in-situ monitoring system, the in-situ monitoring system monitoring an elongated region and generating a measured signal, computing an angle between a primary axis of the elongated region and a tangent to an edge of the substrate, modifying the measured signal based on the angle to generate a modified signal, and at least one of detecting a polishing endpoint or modifying a polishing parameter based on the modified signal.

In-situ monitoring system with monitoring of elongated region

A method of operating a polishing system includes polishing a substrate at a polishing station, the substrate held by a carrier head during polishing, transporting the substrate to an in-sequence optical metrology system positioned between the polishing station and another polishing station or a transfer station, measuring a plurality of spectra reflected from the substrate with a probe of the optical metrology system while moving the carrier head to cause the probe to traverse a path across the substrate and while the probe remains stationary, the path across the substrate comprising either a plurality of concentric circles or a plurality of substantially radially aligned arcuate segments, and adjusting a polishing endpoint or a polishing parameter of the polishing system based on one or more characterizing values generated based on at least some of the plurality of spectra.

Path for probe of spectrographic metrology system

A carrier head for chemical mechanical polishing that has a base, a mounting assembly connected to the base having a surface for contacting a substrate, and a retaining ring secured to the base. The retaining ring can include perfluoroalkoxy, polyetherketoneketone, polybenzimidazole, a semi-crystalline thermoplastic polyester, or a long molecular chain molecule produced from poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide.

Retaining ring and articles for carrier head

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Doyle E Bennett