Vertical polishing tool and method

摘要

A vertically-oriented wafer polishing apparatus and method is disclosed including a vertically-oriented polishing device, a semiconductor wafer carrier and a cleaning module to clean the polishing device by removing contaminants that may scratch the wafer and also reduce the polishing rate of the apparatus. The device reduces the "down time" of a polishing apparatus and, therefore, increases the yield of well-polished wafers in a given time period.