Effects of calcination and milling process conditions for ceria slurry on shallow-trench-isolation chemical-mechanical polishing performance

Abstract

To improve the performance of shallow trench isolation chemical-mechanical polishing (STI-CMP) in terms of the removal selectivity of oxide and nitride films and the formation of surface defects, we investigated the effects of the calcination and milling process conditions during ceria slurry synthesis. We have focused on the effects of particle size distribution, the large-particle size, and the dispersion stability in a ceria slurry. We determined the optimum bead size for milling and appropriate calcination temperatures in order to obtain a reasonable particle distribution, with lower numbers of fine primary particles and large, agglomerated particles, in ceria slurry. This was achieved by reducing the quantity of aggregated particles during milling and two-step calcination process generating higher-density particles. These results can be qualitatively explained by abrasive collisions occurring between the milling beads and the decarbonation of cerium carbonate through diffusion during the manufacturing process used for the ceria slurry.