Patent 7963826 was granted and assigned to Applied Materials on June, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Apparatus and methods for conditioning a polishing pad include an arm adapted to support a conditioning disk; a drive mechanism coupled to the arm; and a flexible coupling between the drive mechanism and the conditioning disk adapted to allow the conditioning disk to tilt while transmitting rotary motion from the drive mechanism to the conditioning disk. Numerous other aspects are disclosed.