Microelectronic Applications of Chemical Mechanical Planarization

Chemical mechanical planarization, or CMP, has become one of the newest and most important fabrication technologies adopted by the semiconductor industry worldwide, despite a remarkably nontraditional and somewhat controversial developmentalhistory. Begun as a mere research and development curiosity more than 20 years ago at IBM, the technique borrows heavily from the traditional mechanical wet polishing processes for silicon substrate wafers and optical glass lenses. Introduced for production at a time when dry fabrication processes were overwhelmingly favored, the completely wet CMP process was initially considered unconventional and incompatible with the rest of the manufacturing processes, to say the least.