13:10 – 13:20
Revolutionizing Silicon Carbide Substrate Polishing via Environmentally-Conscious Slurry and Tool Designs
Standard SiC polishing processes employ aggressive, environmentally harmful redox chemistries containing potassium permanganate to achieve acceptable polishing outcomes. Polisher wear and tear caused by such an aggressive chemical remains a significant concern. Instead, we have chosen a two-pronged approach to improve SiC polish. Firstly, we have patented a hydrogen peroxide-based SiC slurry containing alumina nanoparticles and aspartic acid complexes for final polishing. The second approach utilizes a novel polisher that we have designed, are now manufacturing, and are selling worldwide. We call our invention CARE-TEC® or “CAtalyst-Referred Etching Technology”. The technology employs a polymeric pad onto which a catalytic platinum or ruthenium film is sputtered. With pH-adjusted water as the slurry substitute, an electric potential is applied to the SiC substrate and the pad. The principal mechanism of polishing SiC is the continuous etching of the substrate by catalytically converting the top layers of SiC into monolayers of silicon dioxide, which are then removed mechanically (via polishing) at moderate pressures.
Ara Philipossian, Ph.D.
Araca
Dr. Ara Philipossian has been a professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arizona since 2001, where he holds the Koshiyama Chair of Planarization. Since its establishment in 2004, he has also been the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Araca Incorporated, the premier provider of services and equipment to the polishing and planarization industry worldwide. He received his BS, MS, and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University in 1983, 1985, and 1992, respectively. From 1992 to 2001, he was the Materials Technology Manager at Intel Corporation (Santa Clara, CA, USA), responsible for the development, characterization, implementation, and sustaining of new and existing CMP and post-CMP cleaning consumables, low-k dielectrics, and electroplating chemicals. From 1986 to 1992, he worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (Hudson, MA, USA) as a process development manager focusing on thermal silicon oxidation, diffusion, LPCVD of dielectric and gate electrodes, and wafer cleaning technology. Dr. Philipossian has authored approximately 180 archival journal publications and 210 conference proceedings articles. He holds 36 patents in semiconductor processing and device fabrication.
Araca
Company Profile
Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Tucson, AZ (USA), Araca Inc. provides unique, enabling, and fully customized solutions to our clients in IC planarization and semiconductor polishing for silicon and wide band-gap material applications. Clients include leading IC makers, consumables suppliers, OEMs, universities, and research centers. Our products lower the cost of ownership (COO) of CMP or polishing modules, allowing clients to save money and preserve the environment by reducing slurry and rinse water consumption, increasing pad and diamond disc life, while increasing polisher availability, throughput, and yield.
Company Products & Services
Our key equipment add-on products, namely, Flucto-CMP®, ESE-100® and the Slurry Injection System (SIS®) are compatible with all polishers. SIS® continues to be rapidly adopted in HVM due to its proven COO and environmental benefits, while Flucto-CMP® is undergoing extensive beta-testing at multiple major OEMs. We provide sensorized and affordable polishers-tribometers and PVA brush scrubbers-tribometers (up to 300 mm wafers), which offer significant reductions in process and consumables characterization costs and R&D expenses. CARE-TEC® is our revolutionary SiC and GaN final polishing system; it requires no slurry or conditioning disc. In our brand-new Class 100 clean room at the University of Arizona, we provide research and foundry services for all sizes and types of substrates. We perform high-quality and highly scientific analytical and functional tests on pads, slurries, conditioners, retaining rings, brushes, and cleaning chemicals. Our pad surface preparation and grooving services are second to none. We develop customized CMP, polishing, and cleaning consumables and processes for various applications, including SiC and GaN, and remain open to co-development programs. We also offer delayering services for 3D NAND and DRAM structures for diagnostics.
