Appeal No. 95-1009
Application 07/858,632
process of fabricating electronic devices which include a
polishing step which comprises (1) forming a conductive
polish-stop layer over a substrate; (2) effecting said
smoothing; and (3) monitoring the electric resistance between
the substrate and a surface of the polishing member contacting
the substrate to determine a polish end according to changes
in electric resistance.4
Kaanta is directed to a method of monitoring the
conductivity of a semiconductor wafer during the course of a
polishing process (see the abstract). Kaanta uses an
oscilloscope to monitor an electric current (column 4, lines
48-50) which follows a current path when the insulating layer
is removed by polishing, exposing the substrate contacting
metal pads (column 4, lines 31-39). Therefore Kaanta
describes the three steps of the claimed method, i.e., forming
a conductive polish-stop layer over a substrate by use of the
metal pads or metal points 4, effecting a smoothing process,5
4 The lack of an end point detection method in polishing after the ECR-CVD
process has been recognized in the prior art (see Wolf, page 239).
5 Claim 6 is not limited to a conductive polish-stop layer over the entire
surface of the substrate. Therefore the formation of metal pads in Kaanta meets the
requirement of the first step in the method of claim 6.
8
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