公开(公告)号：US12169925B2

公开(公告)日：2024-12-17

申请号：US18500811

申请日：2023-11-02

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Sivakumar Dhandapani ,  Arash Alahgholipouromrani ,  Dominic J. Benvegnu ,  Jun Qian ,  Kiran Lall Shrestha

IPC: G06T7/00 ,  B24B37/013 ,  G06T7/60

Abstract: A neural network is trained for use in a substrate thickness measurement system by obtaining ground truth thickness measurements of a top layer of a calibration substrate at a plurality of locations, each location at a defined position for a die being fabricated on the substrate. A plurality of color images of the calibration substrate are obtained, each color image corresponding to a region for a die being fabricated on the substrate. A neural network is trained to convert color images of die regions from an in-line substrate imager to thickness measurements for the top layer in the die region. The training is performed using training data that includes the plurality of color images and ground truth thickness measurements with each respective color image paired with a ground truth thickness measurement for the die region associated with the respective color image.

公开(公告)号：US20230390884A1

公开(公告)日：2023-12-07

申请号：US17963142

申请日：2022-10-10

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Nicholas A. Wiswell ,  Benjamin Cherian ,  Jun Qian ,  Thomas H. Osterheld

IPC: B24B37/005 ,  G01H11/08 ,  G01D5/14 ,  B24B37/04

CPC classification number: B24B37/005 ,  G01H11/08 ,  G01D5/14 ,  B24B37/042

Abstract: A chemical mechanical polishing apparatus includes a platen to support a polishing pad, a carrier head to hold a surface of a substrate against the polishing pad, a motor to generate relative motion between the platen and the carrier head so as to polish an overlying layer on the substrate, an in-situ acoustic monitoring system comprising an acoustic sensor that receives acoustic signals from the surface of the substrate, and a controller configured to determine a angular orientation of the substrate based on received acoustic signals from the in-situ acoustic monitoring system.

公开(公告)号：US11836913B2

公开(公告)日：2023-12-05

申请号：US17359307

申请日：2021-06-25

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Sivakumar Dhandapani ,  Arash Alahgholipouromrani ,  Dominic J. Benvegnu ,  Jun Qian ,  Kiran Lall Shrestha

IPC: G06K9/00 ,  G06T7/00 ,  G06T7/60 ,  B24B37/013

CPC classification number: G06T7/001 ,  B24B37/013 ,  G06T7/60 ,  G06T2207/10024 ,  G06T2207/20021 ,  G06T2207/20081 ,  G06T2207/20084 ,  G06T2207/30148

Abstract: A neural network is trained for use in a substrate thickness measurement system by obtaining ground truth thickness measurements of a top layer of a calibration substrate at a plurality of locations, each location at a defined position for a die being fabricated on the substrate. A plurality of color images of the calibration substrate are obtained, each color image corresponding to a region for a die being fabricated on the substrate. A neural network is trained to convert color images of die regions from an in-line substrate imager to thickness measurements for the top layer in the die region. The training is performed using training data that includes the plurality of color images and ground truth thickness measurements with each respective color image paired with a ground truth thickness measurement for the die region associated with the respective color image.

公开(公告)号：US20230290691A1

公开(公告)日：2023-09-14

申请号：US18200244

申请日：2023-05-22

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Kun Xu ,  Kiran Lall Shrestha ,  Doyle E. Bennett ,  David Maxwell Gage ,  Benjamin Cherian ,  Jun Qian ,  Harry Q. Lee

IPC: H01L21/66 ,  G06N3/08 ,  H01L21/304 ,  G06F17/15 ,  B24B37/013 ,  B24B49/10 ,  H01L21/321

CPC classification number: H01L22/14 ,  G06N3/08 ,  H01L21/304 ,  H01L22/12 ,  G06F17/15 ,  B24B37/013 ,  B24B49/105 ,  H01L21/3212 ,  H01L22/26

Abstract: A method of polishing a substrate includes polishing a conductive layer on the substrate at a polishing station, monitoring the layer with an in-situ eddy current monitoring system to generate a plurality of measured signals values for a plurality of different locations on the layer, generating thickness measurements the locations, and detecting a polishing endpoint or modifying a polishing parameter based on the thickness measurements. The conductive layer is formed of a first material having a first conductivity. Generating includes calculating initial thickness values based on the plurality of measured signals values and processing the initial thickness values through a neural network that was trained using training data acquired by measuring calibration substrates having a conductive layer formed of a second material having a second conductivity that is lower than the first conductivity to generated adjusted thickness values.

公开(公告)号：US11524382B2

公开(公告)日：2022-12-13

申请号：US16368649

申请日：2019-03-28

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Kun Xu ,  Denis Ivanov ,  Harry Q. Lee ,  Jun Qian

IPC: H01L21/67 ,  G06N3/063 ,  B24B37/005 ,  B24B49/10 ,  G05B19/048 ,  G06N20/00

Abstract: Data received from an in-situ monitoring system includes, for each scan of a sensor, a plurality of measured signal values for a plurality of different locations on a layer. A thickness of a polishing pad is determined based on the data from the in-situ monitoring system. For each scan, a portion of the measured signal values are adjusted based on the thickness of the polishing pad. For each scan of the plurality of scans and each location of the plurality of different locations, a value is generated representing a thickness of the layer at the location. This includes processing the adjusted signal values using one or more processors configured by machine learning. A polishing endpoint is detected or a polishing parameter is modified based on the values representing the thicknesses at the plurality of different locations.

公开(公告)号：US11504821B2

公开(公告)日：2022-11-22

申请号：US16191263

申请日：2018-11-14

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Sivakumar Dhandapani ,  Jun Qian

IPC: B24B37/013 ,  B24B37/20 ,  B24B37/04

Abstract: An apparatus for chemical mechanical polishing includes 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 configured to receive a signal from the monitoring system and generate a measure of polishing pad wear rate by applying a predictive filter to the signal.

公开(公告)号：US20210358819A1

公开(公告)日：2021-11-18

申请号：US17317501

申请日：2021-05-11

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Kun Xu ,  Kiran Lall Shrestha ,  Doyle E. Bennett ,  David Maxwell Gage ,  Benjamin Cherian ,  Jun Qian ,  Harry Q. Lee

IPC: H01L21/66 ,  G06N3/08 ,  G06F17/15 ,  H01L21/304

Abstract: A method of polishing a substrate includes polishing a conductive layer on the substrate at a polishing station, monitoring the layer with an in-situ eddy current monitoring system to generate a plurality of measured signals values for a plurality of different locations on the layer, generating thickness measurements the locations, and detecting a polishing endpoint or modifying a polishing parameter based on the thickness measurements. The conductive layer is formed of a first material having a first conductivity. Generating includes calculating initial thickness values based on the plurality of measured signals values and processing the initial thickness values through a neural network that was trained using training data acquired by measuring calibration substrates having a conductive layer formed of a second material having a second conductivity that is lower than the first conductivity to generated adjusted thickness values.

公开(公告)号：US10256111B2

公开(公告)日：2019-04-09

申请号：US15621638

申请日：2017-06-13

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Eric Lau ,  King Yi Heung ,  Charles C. Garretson ,  Jun Qian ,  Thomas H. Osterheld ,  Shuchivrat Datar ,  David Chui

IPC: H01L21/32 ,  H01L21/321 ,  G01B11/03 ,  G01B11/06 ,  H01L21/304 ,  H01L21/3105 ,  H01L21/66

Abstract: A method for polishing dies locations on a substrate with a polishing module. A thickness at selected locations on the substrate is premeasured at a metrology station, each location corresponding to a location of a single die. The thickness obtained by the metrology station for the selected locations of the substrate is provided to a controller of a polishing module. The thickness corrections for each selected location on the substrate are determined. A polishing step in a polishing recipe is formed from the thickness correction for each selected location. A polishing parameter for each die location is calculated for the recipe.

公开(公告)号：US09372116B2

公开(公告)日：2016-06-21

申请号：US14195519

申请日：2014-03-03

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Jeffrey Drue David ,  Jun Qian

IPC: B24B37/013 ,  G01J3/46 ,  B24B37/04 ,  B24B49/12

CPC classification number: G01J3/46 ,  B24B37/013 ,  B24B37/042 ,  B24B49/12

Abstract: A method of generating reference spectra includes polishing a first substrate in a polishing apparatus, measuring a sequence of spectra from the first substrate during polishing with an in-situ optical monitoring system, for each spectrum in the sequence of spectra, determining a best matching reference spectrum from a first plurality of first reference spectra to generate a sequence of reference spectra, calculating a value of a metric of fit of the sequence of spectra to the sequence of reference spectra, comparing the value of the metric of fit to a threshold value and determining whether to generate a second library based on the comparison, and if the second library is determined to be generated, storing the sequence of spectra as a second plurality of reference spectra.

Abstract translation: 产生参考光谱的方法包括抛光抛光装置中的第一衬底，在光谱序列中的每个光谱下，用原位光学监测系统在抛光期间测量来自第一衬底的光谱序列，确定最佳匹配参考 频谱从第一多个第一参考光谱生成参考光谱序列，计算光谱序列的拟合度量与参考光谱序列的值，将拟合度量的值与阈值进行比较，以及 基于所述比较确定是否生成第二库，以及如果确定要生成所述第二库，则将所述光谱序列存储为第二多个参考光谱。

公开(公告)号：US09242337B2

公开(公告)日：2016-01-26

申请号：US14185185

申请日：2014-02-20

Applicant: Applied Materials, Inc.

Inventor： Jun Qian ,  Sivakumar Dhandapani ,  Benjamin Cherian ,  Thomas H. Osterheld ,  Charles C. Garretson

IPC: B24B49/12 ,  B24B49/10 ,  B24B37/005 ,  B24B35/00

CPC classification number: B24B35/005 ,  B24B37/005

Abstract: A method for controlling the residue clearing process of a chemical mechanical polishing (“CMP”) process is provided. Dynamic in-situ profile control (“ISPC”) is used to control polishing before residue clearing starts, and then a new polishing recipe is dynamically calculated for the clearing process. Several different methods are disclosed for calculating the clearing recipe. First, in certain implementations when feedback at T0 or T1 methods are used, a post polishing profile and feedback offsets are generated in ISPC software. Based on the polishing profile and feedback generated from ISPC before the start of the clearing process, a flat post profile after clearing is targeted. The estimated time for the clearing step may be based on the previously processed wafers (for example, a moving average of the previous endpoint times). The calculated pressures may be scaled to a lower (or higher) baseline pressure for a more uniform clearing.

Abstract translation: 提供了一种用于控制化学机械抛光（“CMP”）工艺的残渣清除过程的方法。 动态原位轮廓控制（“ISPC”）用于在清除开始之前控制抛光，然后动态地计算清理过程的新抛光配方。 公开了用于计算清除配方的几种不同的方法。 首先，在使用T0或T1方法的反馈的某些实现中，在ISPC软件中生成后抛光轮廓和反馈偏移。 根据在清算过程开始之前从ISPC产生的抛光轮廓和反馈，目标是清除后的平坦柱状态。 清除步骤的估计时间可以基于先前处理的晶片（例如，先前端点时间的移动平均值）。 计算的压力可以缩放到较低（或更高）的基线压力，以获得更均匀的清除。