Advanced polishing and planarization equipment

Objective

- To improve throughput restrictions of CMP planarisation by clustering 2 to 3 polishing heads with a single double sided cleaning unit for 150 and 200 mm wafer processing.

- Better performance, lower cost of operation and flexibility for different CMP applications are targeted.

- Incorporate robotic handling, SMIF I/O, barcode reader, SECs/ GEM interface and endpoint detection.

- Later use of the tool for CMP planarisation of metal or high performance bulk silicon wafer polishing.

The performance of a Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) cluster with the potential for 300 mm wafer processing, delivered by P. Wolters, is to be assessed and improved under IC manufacturing conditions at TEMIC in Heilbronn, Germany. A complex technological assessment programme is foreseen as well as intensive work on reliability and uptime improvement and reduction of chemicals consumption to achieve competitive cost of ownership figures.

Programme(s)

• FP4-ESPRIT 4 - Specific research and technological development programme in the field of information technologies, 1994-1998

Topic(s)

• 2.9 - Building blocks, methods & tools for semiconductor app&techs

Funding Scheme

Coordinator