Abstract: Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is one of the key techniques in integrated circuit manufacture. Wafer carrier is a very important component of CMP system. For studying the effect of position of ball joint on the ability of transient adjustment of wafer carrier orientation in planarization process, mixed soft elastohydrodynamic lubrication model is adopted to analyze the flow and contact behaviors over the pad surface, and the transient change of wafer orientation is simulated combining the transient motion equations of carrier. The simulation results indicate that the higher the height of the ball joint, the faster the orientation adjustment of wafer. The disadvantage of higher ball joint height is that the maximum nominal contact pressure is increased. The increasing of friction moment is of benefit to maintain the wafer in a balance posture, but non-uniformity of contact pressure distribution is increased. Therefore, the reasonable design of carrier structure is very important for the performance of CMP. The analysis of dynamic characteristics of carrier using the transient mixed lubrication model proposed can offer helpful theoretical guidance to the design of carrier

Key words: chemical mechanical planarization;elastohydrodynamic lubrication;transient adjustment;moment of inertia