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:
May. 22, 2001
Filed:
Jun. 07, 2000
Daniel A. Koos, Tempe, AZ (US);
Sung C. Kim, Pflugerville, TX (US);
Gurtej S. Sandhu, Boise, ID (US);
Micron Technology, Inc., Boise, ID (US);
Abstract
A method of planarizing a substrate employs two separate chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) steps. In the first CMP step, the substrate is polished using a first CMP slurry solution and a polishing pad. A diluting solution is then applied to the polishing pad to remove slurry of the first CMP step. In the second CMP step, after applying the diluting solution to the polishing pad to remove the first slurry, second CMP slurry solution is applied to the polishing pad to facilitate additional planarization of the substrate. In a particular embodiment of this invention, the diluting solution comprises a buffer solution having a pH level corresponding to a pH level of one of the first or second CMP slurry solution. In accordance with another aspect of this embodiment, a plurality of different diluting solutions are applied to the polishing pad intermediate the respective first and second CMP steps.