An analytical investigation of pad wear caused by the conditioner in fixed abrasive chemical–mechanical polishing

Fixed abrasive chemical–mechanical polishing (CMP) is an efficient surface finishing method. The non-uniformity of substrates after polishing is one of the most interesting things in current trends in research. One of the reasons for the non-uniformity is pad wear. The pad in this polishing process has abrasive grains embedded on the surface. Researching on the pad wear will help improve the pad conditioning process to get a better pad surface. Some studies have used kinematic motion to show the correlation between the cutting path density and the pad wear. However, the effect of contact time between the conditioner’s grains and the pad surface on the pad wear non-uniformity has not been integrated yet. In this research, an analytical model was established by combining of the kinematic motions and the contact time to investigate the pad wear non-uniformity. The results indicated that the cutting path density and the contact time near the pad center are more than that near the pad edge. They could be the main reasons of the non-uniformity of the pad wear. The model results showed a good agreement with experiments.ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore