UC San Diego

Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is a polishing process used during the manufacture of microelectronic integrated circuits. During fabrication of multilevel circuitry, excess deposited material must be removed and the wafer surface globally planarized for proper function of devices. This is especially necessary with copper interconnects, thus, copper CMP was the focus of this study. CMP requires the use of a slurry containing nanometer-sized abrasive particles along with a variety of chemical additives. The particles and chemicals act synergistically to mechanically and chemically remove material and provide a near globally planar surface. For optimal CMP performance, the effective abrasive particle size must be controlled. If particles aggregate, CMP performance may diminish and possibly even cause defective devices. The chemistry of the slurry (pH, ions present, etc) can not only affect the mean aggregate size of the abrasive particles, but also growth of aggregate over time. This research investigated the aggregation behavior of suspensions of 150 nm alumina particles in 1mM KNO₃ with various additives (glycine, H₂O₂, benzotriazole, and sodium dodecyl sulfate) used in CMP of copper through effective particle (agglomerate) size versus time and zeta potential measurements. Aggregate size rate data were analyzed to elucidate the mechanism of aggregation, as well its effect on the structure of the resultant aggregate. The effects of temperature of the slurry were also explored. Finally, particle size distribution data collected at various stages of aggregation were incorporated into the Luo and Dornfeld model of CMP to investigate the dynamic nature of the CMP process