Pad conditioner cutting speed monitoring

Abstract

To provide a disclosure relating to monitoring the cut rate through a polishing pad by a pad conditioner in chemical mechanical polishing.SOLUTION: An apparatus for chemical mechanical polishing is provided, including: a platen having a surface to support a polishing pad; a carrier head to hold a substrate against a polishing surface of the polishing pad; a pad conditioner to hold a conditioning disk against the polishing surface; an in-situ polishing pad thickness monitoring system; and a controller. The controller is configured to receive a signal from the monitoring system, generate a measure of a pad cut rate from the signal, and determine a measure of variability of the pad cut rate from the signal.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1B