Technological Advances and Challenges in Chemical Mechanical Polishing

Abstract

It has been already several decades since chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process has been deployed as a planarization technique for the fabrication of integrated circuit (IC) in the semiconductor industries. CMP is considered to be a wet polishing technique that has the capability to generate ultrafine surfaces for numerous materials using the combined effect of chemical and mechanical interactions. As CMP involves both mechanical and chemical actions, the process efficiency of CMP also varies with the parameters involved with mechanical and chemical aspects. This chapter presents an overview of CMP technology, working principles, its recent advancement status in terms of green slurry development, abrasives development, new polishing method, research trends and challenges.