Patent ID: 7507148

Claim:
A polishing apparatus for performing a polishing operation comprising: a polishing plate provided with an abrasive cloth; a chuck for holding a polishing target material to bring the polishing target material into contact with the abrasive cloth; a head body fixed to a rotary drive shaft having reciprocal movement in a plane, for holding and rotatably driving the chuck; and a retainer ring supported by the head body in a periphery of the chuck, the polishing target material being polished by the abrasive cloth by a relative motion of the polishing plate and the chuck, characterized in that the polishing apparatus includes: supporting means for supporting the retainer ring and the chuck respectively to the head main body so that the retainer ring and the chuck can be moved in a direction of the rotary drive shaft and in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the rotary drive shaft independently of each other; and means for restricting movements of the retainer ring and the chuck so as to maintain a fluctuation of the size of a gap that is perpendicular to the direction of the rotary drive shaft between the retainer ring and the chuck within a predetermined range during the polishing operation.