A WAFER-SCALE PARTICLE AUGMENTED MIXED LUBRICATION MODELING APPROACH FOR CHEMICAL MECHANICAL POLISHING

摘要

The mechanical or tribological action in CMP involves hydrodynamic lubrication, solid contact and abrasive wear,primarily resulting from hard dynamic particles removing material by abrasion. Present work introduces a muchfaster version of the particle augmented mixed lubrication (PAML) modeling approach, previously introduced byTerrell and Higgs, in the form of PAML-lite. With this model, the PAML approach can now be applied to the fullscalewafer-pad interface. Results from this work include the evolution of the hydrodynamic fluid pressure, contactstress, and finally the material removal at the local and wafer scales. Comparisons with existing CMP experimentshave been made and the results are favorable.