Applied Materials, Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Wayne R Swart

Laertis Economikos

Qintao Zhang

Gopalakrishna B Prabhu

Fen Fen Jamin

Samphy Hong

David Jon Lee

Joseph F Salfelder

Donald J Delehanty

David P Surdock

Daniel M Heenan

Daniel G Deyo

Srinivas R Mirmira

Joseph M Danza

Aldrin Bernard Vincent Eddy

Jeffrey P Koch

Avishay Vaxman

A camera may capture reflected light from the surface of the wafer during a semiconductor process that adds or removes material from the wafer, such as an etch process. To accurately determine an endpoint for the process, a camera sampling rate and light source intensity may be optimized in the process recipe. Optimizing the light source intensity may include characterizing light intensities that will be reflected from the waiver using an image of the wafer. Pixel intensities may be used to adjust the light source intensity to compensate for more complex wafer patterns. Optimizing the camera sampling rates may include nondestructively rotating a view of the wafer and converting the sampled intensities to the frequency domain. The camera sampling rate may be increased or decreased to remove spatial noise from the image without oversampling unnecessarily. These optimized parameters may then generate a clean, repeatable trace for endpoint determination.

Endpoint optimization for semiconductor processes

A method and polishing system for planarizing a substrate having one or more materials formed thereon. The method generally includes positioning the substrate in proximity with a polishing pad, dispensing a polishing fluid to the polishing pad, the polishing fluid being subjected to carbonation prior to being dispensed to the polishing pad, and polishing the substrate. The polishing system generally includes a polishing platen having a polishing pad disposed thereon and in proximity to the substrate, a controller configured to cause the polishing pad to contact the substrate, and a polishing fluid delivery system to deliver a polishing fluid to the polishing pad, the polishing fluid delivery system including a carbonation system.

Carbonation of pH controlled KOH solution for improved polishing of oxide films on semiconductor wafers

Growing community of inventors

Tivoli, NY, United States of America

Wayne R Swart