Aging Effects of Silica Slurry and Oxide CMP Characteristics

CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) technology for global planarization of multilevel interconnection structure has been widely studied for the next generation devices. Among the consumables for CMP process, especially, slurry and their chemical compositions play a very important role in the removal rates and within-wafer non-uniformity (WIWNU) for global planarization ability of CMP process. However, CMP slurries contain abrasive particles exceeding 1 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ size, which can cause micro-scratch on the wafer surface after CMP process. Such a large size particle in these slurries may be caused by particle agglomeration in slurry supply-line. In this work, to investigate the effects of agglomeration on the performance of oxide CMP slurry, we have studied an aging effect of silica slurry as a function of particle size distribution and aging time during one month. We Prepared and compared the self-developed silica slurry by adding of alumina powders. Also, we have investigated the oxide CMP characteristics. As an experimental result, we could be obtained the relatively stable slurry characteristics comparable to aging effect of original silica slurry. Consequently, we can expect the saving of high-cost slurry.