CMP

Chemical mechanical planarisation (CMP), often called chemical mechanical polishing, is a procedure to level thin layers. CMP was originally developed for use with typical semiconductor materials but is also being increasingly used in manufacturing microsystems. CMP is essential for low-K materials and for wafers being manufactured whose surface consists of a composite material made up of two materials for example. Due to the different levels of hardness and electricity of both materials, purely mechanical processing in this case would lead to notches in the material transition areas.