Polishing apparatus, polishing method, and semiconductor device fabrication method

Abstract

According to the present invention, there is provided a polishing apparatus comprising: a rotatable turntable; a polishing cloth attached on said turntable; a slurry supply pipe which supplies a slurry onto said polishing cloth; and a polishing member which presses an object to be polished against a surface of said polishing cloth, wherein said polishing cloth once stores the supplied slurry inside said polishing cloth, and discharges the slurry when pressed by said polishing member, thereby supplying the slurry to the surface of the object.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application is based upon and claims benefit of priority under 35 USC §119 from the Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-353393, filed on Oct. 14, 2003, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to a polishing apparatus, polishing method, and semiconductor device fabrication method including a polishing process. [0003] In the recent semiconductor device fabrication field, new fabrication apparatuses have been developed as the degree of micropatterning of semiconductor elements and the density of element structures increase. [0004] Among other fabrication apparatuses, a CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) apparatus is essential in, e.g., CMP processes of a DRAM or high-speed logic LSI, i.e., a metal interconnection formation process, buried element isolation region formation process, and the like. [0005] In these processes using the CMP apparatu...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Since most of the supplied slurry scatters on the polishing cloth as described above, less than half the supplied slurry effectively functions during polishing, and more than half the supplied slurry is wasted.

In the conventional slurry supply method, however, the supply amount of slurry inevitably varies in accordance with the distance from the slurry dropping position.

Therefore, to polish the entire surface of a semiconductor wafer as the object 111 to be polished, an excess slurry must be supplied to ensure a high process performance, and this increases the cost.

Also, the reduction in use amount of slurry generally leads to various process performance deteriorations, e.g., not only the decrease in surface uniformity and polishing speed, but also the extension of erosion which worsens the flatness of the polishing surface and the increase in scratch.

Patent reference 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-94965 Unfortunately, the control mechanism is complicated, and it is difficult to evenly supply the slurry to the entire surface of a wafer.

As described above, it is conventionally impossible to assure a high process performance with a simple arrangement without supplying any excess slurry, and this increases the cost.

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