Abstract: A wafer loading and unloading mechanism is arranged in such a way that polished wafers stored in the loading cassette in a loading robot are not subject to dust contamination. The mechanism for moving loading cassettes mounted in a loading robot upward and downward is provided under the loading cassettes in order to prevent polished wafers from being contaminated with dust which may be generated or become airborne when driving force is transmitted.

Abstract: A polishing device is formed of a pair of rotatable and elevatable upper supporting members provided with ring shape polishing pads at lower surface peripheries thereof, a pair of rotatable lower supporting members provided with ring shape polishing pads at upper surface peripheries thereof, a rotatable and elevatable disc holding device for holding a disc to be polished, and an arm for supporting the upper supporting members and the disc holding device. The polishing device further includes driving devices for rotating the upper supporting members, the lower supporting members and the disc holding device, respectively. The disc is independently rotated in a direction opposite to a rotating direction of the upper and lower supporting members to improve polishing efficiency. By setting rotating speeds of the supporting members and the disc, a regular working mark can be formed on the disc.

Abstract: A method for flattening an inter-layer insulating film of a semiconductor device of a multi-wiring is carried out with a chemical-mechanical polishing process by using an apparatus, which includes two-layer polishing cloth having an unwoven cloth and a hard foamed layer affixed on a support plate. In order to fluff on a surface of the hard foamed layer or recreate on the whole surface thereof, a tool is provided on the polishing cloth. A silicon wafer is held through a backing pad so that an insulating film of a semiconductor device formed on the wafer is polished by the polishing cloth by rotation of the support plate and the wafer, and at the same time the surface layer of the polishing cloth is fluffed by the tool provided with a polishing surface having the curvature as that of the backing pad. Therefore, a polishing rate can be kept stable, and uniformity of polishing quantity is improved.