Patent ID: RE39262

Claim:
A polishing apparatus comprising: a turntable; an abrasive cloth mounted on an upper surface of said turntable; a top ring disposed above said turntable for supporting a workpiece to be polished and pressing the workpiece against said abrasive cloth; moving means for moving said turntable and said top ring relative to each other, thereby to cause said abrasive cloth supported by said turntable to polish a surface of the workpiece pressed by said top ring against said abrasive cloth, during which polishing at least one area of the surface of the workpiece tends to be polished more intensively at a higher polishing rate than at least one other area of the surface of the workpiece, thus tending to create polishing irregularities on the surface of the workpiece; and said abrasive cloth having an actuatable region actuatable regions individually and independently operable to be selectively caused to form therein a recess recesses , and said recess recesses being located at a position positions relative to said top ring to come into contact with the at least one area of the surface of the workpiece and thus forming means to perform less intensive polishing of the at least one area, while a region regions of said abrasive cloth other than at said recess is recesses are operable to contact the at least one other area of the surface of the workpiece to perform a more intensive polishing thereof, and thereby to correct the polishing irregularities.