As technology worldwide continues to evolve, silicon wafer manufacturers are forced to be in a state of constant change to adapt to these new challenges. All steps of the semiconductor development process experience research and innovation, but one area that’s often overseen is wafer dicing.
Smaller chips, thinner wafers, and more delicate materials used in today’s advanced semiconductor devices require more precise and modern wafer dicing techniques to maintain the wafer’s integrity, while keeping yield and production demands.
This technique is a hybrid that combines laser cutting with a fine water jet. A narrow water jet guides a laser beam, which also cools the area and removes debris. Thanks to the wafer, there’s less thermal damage and debris than pure laser dicing. This makes it more suitable for multi-layer and sensitive substrates.
On the other hand, one drawback is that it requires a more complex setup, which is why adoption by fabs remains slow.
A diamond tool scribes the surface for this technique, and the wafer is broken along the score lines. It’s simple, low-cost, and causes no thermal damage. Moreover, it can be used mainly for small-scale or specialty applications.
A downside of this method, though, is that it offers low precision, making it unsuitable for advanced, high-density wafers.
Water Jet Guided Laser Dicing is a modern, high-precision technique that combines the benefits of laser cutting with a water jet's cooling and cleaning action. In contrast, Diamond Scribe and Break are low-cost, mechanical methods that score the wafer and break it along the score lines.
While both offer benefits and drawbacks, adoption has been slow in either case, mainly due to infrastructure costs for silicon manufacturers. Still, here at Wafer World, we’re attentive to innovation in the wafer industry. If you’d like to learn more about our manufacturing techniques, reach out!
