Wear‐Contact Problems and Modeling of Chemical Mechanical Polishing

Abstract

Wafer shape and contact pressure evolution during chemical mechanical polishing, and the characteristics of the steady‐state regime are analyzed on the basis of approaches developed in contact mechanics. Nonplanarity caused by the geometrical nonuniformity (erosion) and by the presence of different material on the surface (recess) is considered. The possibility of the process optimization and the determination of system parameters based on the polished surface profiles is discussed.