Title: Fundamental investigation of silicon wafer edge treatment by ultrasonically assisted polishing (UAP)

Authors: Yongbo Wu, Weiping Yang

Addresses: Department of Machine Intelligence and Systems Engineering, Akita Prefectural University, 84-4 Tsuchiya-ebinokuchi, Yurihonjo, Akita 015-0055, Japan. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Changbei Industries District, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330045, China

Abstract: As a step toward the complete establishment of the silicon wafer edge treatment technique by ultrasonically assisted polishing (UAP) proposed in previous works (Yang et al., 2008; Kobayashi, 2008), the present work deals with the effects of several dominant process parameters (i.e., wafer rotational speed and slurry supply rate) on the wafer surface topography, the surface roughness, and the material removal in details. The obtained experimental results showed that: 1) the surface topography is affected significantly by the process parameters and the best surface can be obtained when they are set up at their respective optimum values; 2) the surface roughness can get smaller as the slurry supply rate increases but a certain value of wafer velocity exists where the roughness gets best; 3) a larger material removal can be obtained as long as the slurry is supplied at a higher flow and the wafer velocity is set up at a higher value.

Keywords: silicon wafer edges; ultrasonic assisted polishing; UAP; surface topography; surface roughness; material removal rate; MRR; polishing pad; silicon wafers; wafer edge treatment; wafer rotational speed; slurry supply rate.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.2011.039935

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, 2011 Vol.40 No.3/4, pp.264 - 276

Accepted: 21 Jan 2011
Published online: 28 Feb 2015 *

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