CMP Polishers and Tribometers

In an exclusive partnership with our strategic corporate investor, Fujikoshi Machinery Corporation (Nagano, Japan), we manufacture top-notch state-of-the-art polishers for processing coupon-sized wafers all the way up to 300 mm. Our highly reliable systems are capable of real time measurement, analysis, correlation, and reporting of shear and normal forces. The polishers are also capable of reporting pad surface temperature in real-time.

The single-platen APD-800 Prime®, our flagship product, is suitable for processing 200, and 300 mm wafers. It is equipped with high-frequency (up to 2,300 Hz) shear and normal sensors, an adjustable pad surface temperature sensor, air cylinder actuated wafer and diamond conditioner downforce assemblies, advanced quick-disconnect wafer carriers (separate carriers for each wafer size come standard with the tool), with two independent zones for the wafer and another zone for the retaining ring. Additionally, the polisher has two independent computer-controlled slurry or chemical delivery systems, rapid platen heating and cooling capability, and a multi-zone diamond conditioning arm that mimics the dwell times and travel zones of an AMAT Reflexion LK®.

The single-platen RDP-500® system is suitable for processing coupon-sized wafers all the way up to 200 mm. All of its features and functions are identical to that of its elder sibling. Reynolds numbers as well as the multi-zone diamond conditioning arm mimic that of an AMAT Mirra®.

Both polishers are powered by our FSX^® proprietary force acquisition and data analysis system having a superb GUI including calibration, data acquisition, waveform analysis, Stribeck+ analysis, end-point detection (based on COF, shear force or normal force), spectral analysis, directivity analysis, and several data correlation menus. The polishers and tribometers are intended for use in research and development environments at universities, research institutes, and consumables suppliers worldwide. They have proven to be indispensable for slurry, pad, PVA brush, retaining ring, cleaning solutions, and conditioning disc QC applications where functional tests are required. Same goes with 3D NAND and DRAM delayering functionalities for failure analysis. Currently, there are more than 20 APD and about 70 RDP polishers in the field worldwide.

By providing standardized and affordable polishers and tribometers to the CMP, silicon and wide-bandgap material polishing communities, we are significantly enhancing the rate at which fundamental knowledge is acquired and shared among various stakeholders on common experimental platforms. Our quest in proliferating our large wafer-size research and development systems is based on several studies that show that using wafers of smaller sizes yields thermal, kinetic, and tribological results that are not representative of real-life situations and can quite often be misleading.

On both platforms, Within-wafer removal rate non-uniformities (WIWRRNUs) for most processes are below 3 percent (1 sigma, 5 mm edge exclusion). Run-to-run non-uniformity values of average removal rate, WIWRRNU, average shear force, average downforce, and average pad temperature are less than 2 percent.

Please refer to the APD-800 Prime® Brochure as well as the RDP-500® Brochure for details on the various features and capabilities of the tools along with our latest product specifications. Please feel free contact us with any questions.