Polishing behaviors of single crystalline ceria abrasives on silicon dioxide and silicon nitride CMP

The effects of single crystalline ceria (CeO₂) abrasives in chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) slurries were investigated for silicon dioxide (SiO₂) and silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) CMP process. The size of ceria abrasives was controlled by varying hydrothermal reaction conditions. Polishing removal rate was measured with four slurries, with different mean primary particle size of 62, 116, 163 and 232 nm. The polishing results showed that the single crystalline ceria abrasives were not easily broken-down by mechanical force during CMP process. It was found that the removal rate of oxide and nitride film strongly depend upon abrasive size, whereas the surface uniformity deteriorates as abrasive size increases. The observed polishing results confirmed that there exists an optimum abrasive size (163 nm) for maximum removal selectivity between oxide and nitride films. The polishing behavior of the single crystalline ceria abrasives was discussed in terms of morphological properties of the abrasive particle.