Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability

Copper CMP is a corrosion-wear process, in which mechanical and chemical-electrochemical phenomena interact synergistically. Existing models generally treat copper CMP as a corrosion enhanced wear process. However, the underlying mechanisms suggest that copper CMP would be better modeled as a wear enhanced corrosion process, where intermittent asperity/abrasive action enhances the local oxidation rate, and is followed by time-dependent passivation of copper. In this work an integrated tribo-chemical model of material removal at the asperity/ abrasive scale was developed. Abrasive and pad properties, process parameters, and slurry chemistry are all considered. Three important components of this model are the passivation kinetics of copper in CMP slurry chemicals; the mechanical response of protective films on copper; and the interaction frequency of copper with abrasives/pad asperities. The material removal rate during copper CMP was simulated using the tribo-chemical model, using input parameters obtained experimentally in accompanying research or from the literature.