Abstract: A wafer polishing apparatus has a rotary polishing bed, an abrasive cloth provided on the polishing bed, an abrasive supply supplying abrasives to a surface of the abrasive cloth, a wafer depressor depressing the wafer onto the abrasive cloth at a predetermined pressure, a ring shaped retainer arranged surrounding the wafer and provided with a plurality of grooves extending between an inner peripheral edge and an outer peripheral edge on a surface contacting with the abrasive cloth, a rotary driver driving the wafer and the retainer on the abrasive cloth, and a rotation speed difference generator providing a difference of rotation speeds between the wafer and the retainer.

Abstract: A method of forming a tungsten plug is disclosed in which a blanket tungsten layer 16 is deposited on a conductive layer including a titanium nitride film 15 and thereafter etched back using SF.sub.6 plasma until the surface of the titanium nitride (TIN) film 15 is exposed. At this time, fluorine in SF.sub.6 adheres to the surface of the TiN film. The wafer thus treated is maintained in a vacuum atmosphere and then a removing step is performed to remove fluorine from the surface of the TiN film.

Abstract: A method for fabricating a semiconductor device includes the steps of exposing and developing a resist film applied on a conductive film formed over a semiconductor substrate, and removing a resist residue developed on the resist film. The removal of a resist residue is made by irradiating thereon the helium plasma generated using a helium gas in a parallel plate type plasma etching system. Thereafter, the conductive film is dry-etched and patterned using the resist film as a mask. The use of the helium gas plasma etching process enables the delaying of the etching rate and the suppression of the thinning of the resist film thereby enhancing the size precision of the photo mask.