A study on the stress and nonuniformity of the wafer surface for the chemical-mechanical polishing process

In this paper, a two-dimensional axisymmetric quasic-static model for the chemical-mechanical polishing process (CMP) was established. Based on the principle of minimum total potential energy, a finite element model for CMP was thus established. In this model, the four-layer structures including the wafer carrier, the carrier film, the wafer and the pad are involved. The von Mises stress distributions on the wafer surface were analysed, and the effects of characteristics of the pad and the carrier film and the load of the carrier on the von Mises stress and nonuniformity on the wafer surface were investigated. The findings indicate that the profile of the von Mises stress distributions correlates with the removal rate profile. The elastic modulus and thickness of pad and carrier load would significantly affect the von Mises stress and nonuniformity, but those of the film did not affect very much.