The Mechanical Polishing Process Based on Pin-on-disk Experiments

In many works on the material removal in the Chemical Mechanical Process (CMP), the effects of several process parameters have been addressed. However, a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of material removal and a model to correlate the process parameters to material removal rate (MRR) are still lacking. This appendix develops such models for polishing based on the results from the pin-on-disk experiments with emphasis on the mechanical aspects of CMP. The pin-on-disk apparatus offers a quick way to conduct polishing experiments and thus identify the significance of such process parameters as the abrasion mode, abrasive size, abrasive concentration, and hardness of material abraded on MRR and Preston constant. Process optimization schemes for enhancing MRR and Preston constant are also proposed.