Process for treating polishing cloths used for semiconductor wafers

US5167667A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Wacker-Chemitronic Gesellschaft fur Elektronik Grundstoffe mbH · DE

Inventors

• Helene Prigge · Unterschleißheim, DE
• Josef Lang · Regensburg, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 5, 1990
• Grant date: Dec 1, 1992
• Expiry date: Jun 5, 2010

Classification

• Technology area (CPC B): Performing Operations; Transporting
• CPC primary: B24B53/017
• WIPO field: Machine tools
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

In the chemo-mechanical polishing, in particular, of semiconductor wafers, he abrasion and the geometrical quality of the wafers decreases with increasing service life of the polishing cloth. This can be prevented by treating the polishing cloth in each case after the polishing operation in a manner such that a pressure field is impressed, essentially without mechanical stress, on the polishing cloth, which pressure field causes a treatment liquid to flow through the interior of the polishing cloth and in this process the residues produced during polishing are rendered mobile and removed. A baseplate placed transversely across the polishing cloth and having a flat working surface provided with exit openings for the treatment liquid is suitable for carrying out the process. In the treatment, the treatment liquid is forced beneath the baseplate into the moving polishing cloth so that the latter is gradually traversed by the zone through which flow takes place.