CMP – Chemical Mechanical Polishing

Our need of high-performance devices keeps growing, requiring faster and faster systems, always more compact. Wafers are designed with CMP process to reach no defectivity at the nanoscale.

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What is a CMP process?

High purity alumina (HPA) slurry drops

CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing/Planarization) is a highly precise polishing process. It combines two specific actions. Firstly, the process modifies chemical properties of the substrate by chemical agents. Meanwhile, highly designed abrasive particles are performing the mechanical treatment.

Properties of the process

Experts recommend chemical mechanical planarazing for highly demanding semiconductor applications. Indeed, the process brings remarkable properties:

  • High precision: the more data we achieve to store on a device, the more precise the design becomes. Storage devices are often produced by successive layers deposit. Those layers are very thin and must be fully flat with a perfect surface finish. Several means help measuring the surface finish, for example the Peak-to-Valley. Indeed, PV is the measurement of the height difference between the highest point and the lowest point on the surface polished. The latest technologies of semiconductors require PV down to Angstrom levels (10-10m).
  • Fast use: CMP is a multi-step process related to several substrates polishing. The objective is to optimize the duration of each step. However, keeping a high precision polishing process is still essential. Each step is already lasting less than a minute!

Applications for CMP

You know now that chemical mechanical polishing is very demanding. That is why this process appears in making high-end final technologies needing semiconductors, like integrated circuits or memory disks.

Why our powders for CMP?

We provide Ceria & High Purity Alumina for CMP.
Silica polishing often involve ceria slurries (shallow trench isolation – STI CMP) for their:

  • Crystallinity
  • Shape
  • Particle size
  • Particle size distribution
  • Phasic purity, which is highly controlled

Moreover, we optimized our high purity alumina BRA105 product for tungsten (W) polishing. Indeed, it presents remarkable properties:

  • Phasic composition (alpha vs gamma content)
  • Size of abrasive particles
  • Particle size distribution of abrasive particles

CMP slurry for semicon polishing with wafer close-up

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