US Patent 7247558 Method and system for electroprocessing conductive layers

The invention provides a process for forming a planar copper structure on a wafer surface in a first module and a second module of a system. During the process, a copper layer is formed on the wafer surface by utilizing an electrochemical deposition process in the first module. After the deposition, the wafer is moved to the second module of the system and an electrochemical mechanical polishing process is applied to planarize the copper layer to a predetermined thickness. The first and second modules can be positioned in a cluster tool. The wafer is subsequently processed by selective copper CMP and selective barrier layer CMP, which are conducted in another cluster tool.