Patent ID: 6905957

Claim:
A polishing method of chemico-mechanically polishing a film formed on a wafer with a surface having surface irregularities to a target thickness, said method comprising the steps of: determining a predicted required time for a former half of polishing by use of polishing data acquired upon polishing the preceding wafer selected from a same lot as a wafer to be polished and of a type similar to that of the wafer to be polished, the former half of polishing being for polishing the film until the surface irregularities disappear and are changed into a flat surface portion; determining a predicted required time for a latter half of polishing by use of a polishing rate of the component materials of said film formed on a flat substrate, the latter half of polishing being for polishing the flat surface portion of the film; using a value obtained by summing up these predicted required times; and chemico-mechanically polishing a wafer to be polished.