Patent ID: 8096852

Claim:
An apparatus for chemical mechanical polishing comprising: a rotatable polishing pad for processing wafers; a rotatable conditioning disk having an abrasive surface for conditioning the polishing pad; an arm coupled to the conditioning disk for Sweeping the conditioning disk abrasive surface across the polishing pad; a sweeping actuator coupled to the arm for sweeping the arm over the polishing pad; a sweep torque sensor coupled to the arm for detecting an amount of a sweep torque applied to the arm by the sweeping actuator; a rotational torque sensor for detecting a rotational torque applied to the conditioning disk; a compression actuator for adjusting a compressive force of the conditioning disk against the polishing pad; and a controller that receives rotational torque data from the rotational torque sensor and sweep torque data from the sweep torque sensor and uses the rotational torque data and the sweep torque data to adjust the compressive force applied to the conditioning disk by the compression actuator.