Fulcrum

The Fulcrum carrier is an evolution hybrid carrier combining both membrane and rigid plate design to provide precise controls of the polishing effects near the 150mm wafer flat while maintaining low across wafer within wafer non-uniformity.

Although the Crystal membrane carrier offers excellent across wafer polish uniformities along edge rates controls, the membrane design is limited on the maximum applied wafer pressure during polishing.  Typical operating membrane pressure of the Crystal operates in the range of 0.5 to 5.5 psi on thin, fragile SiC substrates whereas the Fulcrum applied membrane pressure can run up to 70% higher than the traditional membrane carrier.  Higher membrane pressure is crucial for SiC CMP in achieving high silicon polish rates in addition to the Fulcrum’s ability to control across wafer uniformities.

FULCRUM PRESSURE LIMITS:

• Membrane:  0.5 to >7 psi
• Inner Tube:  0 to >12 psi
• Center Zone:  0 to 10 psi
• Retaining Ring:  0 to 15 psi
• Membrane Vacuum Limits: 0 to -10 psi