Patent ID: 6955935

Claim:
A method of performing a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process for removing a copper layer on a semiconductor wafer when fabricating a semiconductor device, the method comprising the steps of: i) performing the chemical mechanical polishing process by developing pressure between a CMP pad contacting the copper layer coated with slurry being supplied while either the CMP pad or the copper layer or both are in motion with respect to each other; ii) pausing the movement between the CMP pad and the copper layer for a predetermined duration during the chemical mechanical polishing process of step i), wherein no cleaning process for removing the slurry supplied in the step i) is performed during the predetermined duration; and iii) resuming the chemical mechanical polishing process of step i) after the predetermined duration of step ii), wherein the copper layer is removed by sequentially performing the steps i), ii), and iii) one or more times.