Polishing Characteristics on Silicon Wafer Using Fixed Nano-sized Abrasive Pad

A mechanical polishing process was used to reduce surface roughness through mechanical fracturing and removal of the substrate's roughened regions. It was thus necessary to understand the effect of grain size and morphology on the material removal mechanisms of silicon wafers by stepwise polishing using a fixed abrasive pad. A hybrid process combining the optimized silicon polishing recipe for rapid roughness reduction with a micro-sized diamond, and then polishing using a nano-sized diamond to produce a final finished surface, may be the optimum approach. The best result using the hybrid polishing process was the surface roughness (Ra) value of 3.32 nm.