Chemical and mechanical balance in polishing of electronic materials for defect-free surfaces

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) technology is faced with the challenge of processing new electronic materials. This paper focuses on the balance between chemical and mechanical reactions in the CMP process that is required to cope with a variety of electronic materials. The material properties were classified into the following categories: easy to abrade (ETA), difficult to abrade (DTA), easy to react (ETR) and difficult to react (DTR). The chemical and mechanical balance for the representative ETA–ETR, DTA–ETR, ETA–DTR and DTA–DTR materials was considered for defect-free surfaces. This paper suggests the suitable polishing methods and examples for each electronic material.