Abstract: A method of planarizing a pre-metal dielectric layer using chemical-mechanical polishing, in order to alleviate the problem of resistance reduction when making products having poly-loads, includes providing a semiconductor substrate with a semiconductor component formed thereabove. A pre-metal dielectric layer is formed above the semiconductor substrate. Thereafter, the pre-metal dielectric layer is planarized using chemical-mechanical polishing. Next, a silicon-rich oxide layer, that has a characteristic gettering property which can be used to compensate for the weakening of the gettering ability of the pre-metal dielectric layer, due to the wearing out of the layer in a chemical-mechanical polishing operation, is formed above the pre-metal dielectric layer.

Abstract: A method of planarizing an inter-layer dielectric layer includes using a high density plasma chemical vapor deposition method to deposit an undoped dielectric, which increases the polishing efficiency in a subsequent chemical-mechanical polishing operation, and eliminates the need for a high temperature densifying treatment for planarization. A chemical-mechanical polishing operation is used to planarize the inter-layer dielectric.