Advanced Diamond Disk for electrolytic chemical mechanical planarization

In this paper, we describe a new pad conditioner called the Advanced Diamond Disk (ADD) that can achieve improved polishing and uniformity characteristics on wafers with feature sizes less than 65 nm. The ADD pad conditioner is created by forming cutting tips directly onto a monolithic piece of polycrystalline diamond substrate. This allows the formation of cutting tips with the exact same geometry directly on the conditioner, providing precise control over the cutting tip patterning and eliminating height variation. This unique technology allows significant benefits in four areas: improved polishing characteristics, removal rate uniformity, extended pad life, and lower defect rates. The ADD pad conditioner is uniquely capable of creating uniform and precise asperities on polishing pads, such pads are ideal for polishing interconnects using a ECMP process.