Applied Materials, Inc.

Huyen Karen Tran

Boguslaw A Swedek

Stan D Tsai

Alain Duboust

Wen-Chiang Tu

Jimin Zhang

Ingemar Carlsson

You Wang

Shih-Haur Shen

Daxin Mao

Zhihong Wang

Stephen Jew

Martin S Wohlert

Renhe Jia

David H Mai

Fred Conrad Redeker

Liang-Yuh Chen

Feng Quan Liu

Yan Wang

Pravin K Narwankar

Robert D Tolles

Patricia M Liu

Jay Gurusamy

Yongqi Hu

Gregory E Menk

Padmanabhan Krishnaraj

Ekaterina A Mikhaylichenko

Ravi Rajagopalan

Yuan Tian

Veera Raghava Reddy Kakireddy

Eric Davey

Tim Casper

Alan Ablao

A method and apparatus for polishing a substrate that includes a polishing article comprising a polymeric sheet having a raised surface texture, which is formed on the surface of the polymeric sheet is provided. According to one or more implementations of the present disclosure, an advanced polishing article has been developed, which does not require abrasive pad conditioning. In some implementations of the present disclosure, the advanced polishing article comprises a polymeric sheet having a polishing surface with a raised surface texture or 'micro-features' and/or a plurality of grooves or 'macro-features' formed in the polishing surface. In some implementations, the raised surface texture is embossed, etched, machined or otherwise formed in the polishing surface prior to installing and using the advanced polishing article in a polishing system. In one implementation, the raised features have a height within one order of magnitude of the features removed from the substrate during polishing.

Thin plastic polishing article for CMP applications

A difference between a first expected required polish time for a first substrate and a second expected required polish time for a second substrate is determined using a first pre-polish thickness and a second pre-polish thickness measured at an in-line metrology station. A duration of an initial period is determined based on the difference between the first expected required polish time and the second expected required polish time. For the initial period at a beginning of a polishing operation, no pressure is applied to whichever of the first substrate and the second substrate has a lesser expected required polish time while simultaneously pressure is applied to whichever of the first substrate and the second substrate has a greater expected required polish time. After the initial period, pressure is applied to both the first substrate and the second substrate.

Endpoint control of multiple substrate zones of varying thickness in chemical mechanical polishing

Endpoint control of multiple substrates of varying thickness on the same platen in chemical mechanical polishing

Polishing compositions and methods for removing conductive materials from a substrate surface are provided. The method includes providing a substrate comprising dielectric feature definitions, a barrier material disposed in the feature definitions, and a bulk conductive material disposed on the barrier material in an amount sufficient to fill feature definitions; polishing the substrate to substantially remove the bulk conductive material; polishing a residual conductive material to expose feature definitions, comprising: applying a first voltage for a first time period, wherein the first voltage is less than the critical voltage; and applying a second voltage for a second time period, wherein the second voltage is greater than the critical voltage.

Method and composition for electrochemically polishing a conductive material on a substrate

Embodiments of a conditioning head for in-situ conditioning and/or cleaning a processing pad of a CMP, ECMP, or other processing system are provided. In one embodiment, the conditioning head includes a brush disposed in a central cavity. A cleaning fluid is provided through the central cavity of the conditioning head to a processing pad. The brush spins and moves laterally across the surface of the processing pad. The cleaning solution dispensed through the conditioning head dissolves by-products of the processing operation while the brush gently wipes the processing pad. A lip of the conditioning head retains the cleaning fluid and cleaning waste, thereby minimizing contamination of the area outside of the conditioning head. The cleaning waste is removed from the processing pad via passages formed near the outer periphery of the conditioning head.

Method and apparatus for reduced wear polishing pad conditioning

A processing chamber cleaning method is described which utilizes microwave energy to remotely generate a reactive species to be used alone or in combination with an inert gas to remove deposits from a processing chamber. The reactive species can remove deposits from a first processing region at a first pressure and then remove deposits from a second processing region at a second pressure. Also described is a cleaning process utilizing remotely generated reactive species in a single processing region at two different pressures. Additionally, different ratios of reactive gas and inert gas may be utilized to improve the uniformity of the cleaning process, increase the cleaning rate, reduce recombination of reactive species and increase the residence time of reactive species provided to the processing chamber.

Remote plasma cleaning method for processing chambers

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Huyen Karen Tran