AbstractThe research reported in this article is concerned with the question of detecting and subsequently determining the endpoint in a long-stretch, ultraprecision surface polishing process. While polishing endpoint detection has attracted much attention for several decades in the chemical-mechanical planarization of semiconductor wafer polishing processes, the uniqueness of the surface polishing process under our investigation calls for novel solutions. To tackle the research challenges, we develop both an offline model and an online detection method. The offline model is a functional regression that relates the vibration signals to the surface roughness, whereas the online procedure is a change-point detection method that detects the energy turning points in the vibration signals. Our study reveals a number of insights. The offline functional regression model shows clearly that the polishing process progresses in three states, including a saturation phase, over which the polishing action could be substantially shortened. The online detection method signals in real-time when to break a polishing cycle and to institute a follow-up inspection, rather than letting the machine engage in an overpolishing cycle for too long. When implemented properly, both sets of insights and the corresponding methods could lead to substantial savings in polishing time and energy and significantly improve the throughput of such polishing processes without inadvertently affecting the quality of the final polish.
