The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 22, 1999
Filed:
Sep. 15, 1998
Konstantin Volodarsky, San Francisco, CA (US);
Rahul Jairath, San Jose, CA (US);
Ontrak Systems, Inc., Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
A polishing pad dressing method uses a polishing head for polishing a semiconductor wafer. This polishing head includes a housing, a wafer carrier movably mounted to the housing, and a pad dressing element movably mounted to the housing. The wafer carrier forms a wafer-supporting surface, and the dressing element surrounds the wafer-supporting surface. A first fluid actuator is coupled to the dressing element to bias the pad dressing element with respect to the housing, and a second fluid actuator is coupled to the wafer carrier to bias the wafer carrier with respect to the housing. First and second fluid conduits are coupled to the first and second actuators, respectively, such that fluid pressures in the first and second actuators are separately and independently adjustable with respect to one another. Biasing forces on the dressing element can thereby be dynamically adjusted with respect to biasing forces on the carrier during a polishing operation.