Proposal of New Polishing Mechanism Based on Feret's Diameter of Contact Area between Polishing Pad and Wafer

Relationships between pad surface characteristics and polishing rate are investigated. New parameter “total Feret's diameter” of contact portions is proposed as a key parameter, which shows simple correlation to the polishing rate. Feret's diameter is a projection length of a contact shape. Based on Feret's diameter, a new polishing model is proposed in which material is removed by abrasive particles existing at periphery of the pad contact portions, not on them. When a pad contact portion moves on a wafer, abrasive particles gathers at the front end of the contact portion and they remove the wafer surface material by absorbing molecules on their surface. Number of particles at contact portion is considered to be proportional to Feret's diameter.