Run-to-run process control for chemical mechanical polishing in semiconductor manufacturing

Abstract

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has become, in a few short years, an indispensable semiconductor processing module used in fabrication facilities worldwide. The lack of in-situ measurements of the product qualities of interest, in this case, the surface thickness uniformity, makes Run to run (R2R) control the only viable scheme in most semiconductor manufacturing processes. The literature contains many variations of R2R control schemes to control the CMP process. In this paper, we analyze the performance of these R2R control schemes and proposed a self-tuning predictor-corrector controller (PCC). Initial simulation results depicts order of magnitude improvement in the within wafer uniformity as compared to traditional R2R control schemes.