Efficient automatic polishing process with a new compliant abrasive tool

• DOI: 10.1007/s00170-005-0126-6
• Publication Date: 2006-02-14T08:23:25Z
• Authors: M. J. Tsai; J. F. Huang
• Keywords: Chemical Mechanical Planarization

In this paper, an efficient polishing process is proposed for precision polishing tasks using a new compliant abrasive tool. The polishing process is conducted by a force-controllable five-axes robot. The polishing process comprises many steps using different abrasive grain sizes. For each process step, an optimal set of polishing parameters that can efficiently reduce surface roughness is determined by the Taguchi method. The relation between the surface roughness and the polishing efficiency for each set of optimal parameters can be fitted as an R–E curve. The efficiency of a polishing step decreases with the number of polishing cycles and the surface roughness reduces to an asymptote value. The automatic polishing scheduling is fulfilled by switching to a more efficient choice among these R–E curves until the desired surface roughness is reached.