Texas Instruments Corporation

Madhu Sudan Ramavajjala

Patrick David Noll

Ronald Charles Roth

Prakash Lakshmikanthan

Robert Ray Spangler

Kristi Bushman

Stephen Arlon Meinser

A method for fabricating an integrated circuit includes providing a partitioned chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP) model having a plurality of model parameters that include (i) device specific model parameters and (ii) at least one common parameter. (i) include a pre-CMP thickness of a film including a first material on an in-process device, a post-CMP target thickness for the film on the in-process device, and device group properties that account for device structure for the in-process device. (ii) includes a polish rate from an unpatterned pilot wafer having a second material thereon. The second material need not be the same as the first material. The polish time is automatically determined using the partitioned CMP model. A CMP process is performed on a patterned product wafer having a plurality of the in-process devices using a recipe including the polish time.

Run-to-run control for chemical mechanical planarization

A manufacturing process including a controller method to generate a tool setting which includes a tool offset and a device offset. The controller method uses a device parameter measurement to update the tool offset and device offset. A tool weight and a device weight is assigned so that only one of the tool offset and device offset is significantly changed during the update. The process may be applied to semiconductor device manufacturing and particularly to integrated circuit fabrication.

Process and method for a decoupled multi-parameter run-to-run controller

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Plano, TX, United States of America

Madhu Sudan Ramavajjala