The present application relates to
polishing pads for
chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) of substrates, and methods of fabrication and use thereof. The pads described in this invention are customized to
polishing specifications where specifications include (but not limited to) to the material being polished,
chip design and architecture,
chip density and pattern density, equipment platform and type of
slurry used. These pads can be designed with a specialized polymeric nano-structure with a long or
short range order which allows for
molecular level tuning achieving superior themo-mechanical characteristics. More particularly, the pads can be designed and fabricated so that there is both uniform and nonuniform
spatial distribution of chemical and physical properties within the pads. In addition, these pads can be designed to tune the
coefficient of friction by
surface engineering, through the addition of
solid lubricants, and creating low shear integral pads having multiple
layers of polymeric material which form an interface parallel to the
polishing surface. The pads can also have controlled
porosity, embedded
abrasive, novel grooves on the polishing surface, for
slurry transport, which are produced in situ, and a transparent region for endpoint detection.