Polishing is widely used to obtain smooth thinned wafer surfaces and the process-induced subsurface damage is often evaluated by scanning electron microscope or transmission electron microscope images. However, the difference of microscope images is very slight and subtle between wafers and affected by the location selection of the measured points. In this study, we explored the method of evaluating the polishing-induced subsurface damage based on residual stress distribution via measured global surface deformation. The surface deformation was first measured and then the polishing-induced residual stress distribution was calculated from the surface topography data by solving the system of linear equations. The polishing-induced subsurface damage could be evaluated independent of the dimension of the silicon wafer by the proposed method. How the thinned silicon wafer was supported during measurement process greatly affected polishing-induced wafer deformation and gravity-induced deformation should be separated from the measured data. Regularization method should be introduced in the calculation of residual stress to reduce the errors caused by the multi-collinearity of the system of linear equations. The calculated residual stress distribution was found to be an obvious centrosymmetric figure and exhibited a quasi-axisymmetric pattern with the axis of symmetry correlated with certain crystalline directions, indicating the effect of anisotropy of monocrystalline silicon in the polishing process. The proposed method could also be used in the evaluation of polishing-induced subsurface damage of other large and thin substrate plates.

抛光被广泛用于获得光滑的减薄晶片表面，并且工艺引起的亚表面损伤通常通过扫描电子显微镜或透射电子显微镜图像进行评估。然而，晶片之间显微图像的差异非常细微，并且受测量点的位置选择的影响。在这项研究中，我们探索了基于残余应力分布通过测量的整体表面变形来评估抛光引起的亚表面损伤的方法。首先测量表面变形，然后通过求解线性方程组从表面形貌数据计算抛光引起的残余应力分布。通过所提出的方法，可以独立于硅晶片的尺寸来评估抛光引起的亚表面损伤。在测量过程中如何支撑减薄的硅晶片极大地影响了抛光诱导的晶片变形和重力诱导的变形应与测量数据分开。在残余应力计算中应引入正则化方法，以减少线性方程组多重共线性引起的误差。计算得到的残余应力分布为明显的中心对称图形，呈现出准轴对称图形，对称轴与某些晶向相关，表明单晶硅各向异性对抛光过程的影响。所提出的方法也可用于评估其他大型和薄基板的抛光引起的亚表面损伤。