Development of Evaluation Method for Geometrical Characterization of Polishing Pad Surface Texture Based on Contact Image Analysis Using Image Rotation Prism

Effect of Serial Batch Polishing Tests on Polishing Pad Surface Texture and Polishing Characteristics

Abstract

In the polishing process, the removal rate is affected by changing the pad surface texture due to the deterioration, etc. Therefore, the measurement and quantitative evaluation methods for geometric characterization of polishing pad surface texture are being attempted actively in various research institutes. Here, we have proposed a measurement method for polishing pad surface texture based on contact image analysis using image rotation prism as the four evaluation parameters; (1) number of contact points, (2) contact ratio, (3) spacing of contact points and (4) spatial FFT result of a contact image. In this paper, we demonstrated the serial batch polishing tests and evaluated changing in the pad surface texture with increasing number of polishing test. As the results, it is clear that there are remarkably correlation between the evaluation parameters and the removal rate.