Cutting Silicon Wafers

Silicon wafers after cutting have sharp edges and they chip easily.

Cutting silicon wafers.

Wafer edge is shaped to remove sharp brittle edges. Rounded edge minimizes risk for slipping too. Laser cutting of silicon wafers is possible in all sizes and thicknesses with feature. Silicon wafers are used in semiconductor manufacturing and for producing chips or microchips for computers and other electronic devices.

The xray rocking curves for each slice are shown below figures 4 6. Silicon wafers laser micromachining potomac photonics has extensive experience laser cutting micro feature in silicon wafers. Demonstration of cutting features into 1 5 mm thick silicon wafers using a laser micromachining system equipped with a qcw laser. Dicing of silicon wafers may also be performed by a laser based technique the so called stealth dicing process.

The same system can be used to downsize larger silicon wafers for use in smaller format processing tools. Traditionally silicon wafers have been cut with diamond saws occasionally using a scribe and break process which have the limitation that they can only cut straight lines and suffer from edge chipping and frequency doubled vanadate lasers which are both slow and expensive to operate as is the microjet process. Cut features are round holes with no cracking or rough edges. This technique has been refined over the years yet it still causes problems that cannot be ignored.

A set of silicon wafers were cut according to the above general procedure and then measured using the xray diffractometer. It works as a two stage process in which defect regions are firstly introduced into the wafer by scanning the beam along intended cutting lines and secondly an underlying carrier membrane is expanded to induce fracture. The mounted silicon cylinder is drained into the wire grid and thus cut into single wafers the wire is either coated with diamond splinters or wetted with a suspension of abrasive particles such as diamonds or silicon carbide grains and a carrier glycol or oil the main advantage of this sawing method is that hundreds of wafers can be cut at. Dicing silicon wafers silicon wafers thicker than 100 μm traditionally are cut by diamond blades or saws and the blade s thickness grit size and rotating and cutting speeds affect the cutting quality.

Manufacturing chips and microchips involve cutting the wafers into small square or rectangular chips or die using a process known as silicon wafer dicing.