Since the semiconductor industry is increasingly diversifying into other applications, different types of wafers are used for producing a wide variety of new products. As a result, the humble chuck plate that holds the InP wafer in place throughout the front-end processing is constantly adapting to meet the requirements of various applications.
A wafer chuck is a plate on which wafers are securely mounted during wafer processing applications. Wafer chucks are crucial in wafer manufacturing and sorting in cleanroom environments.
Substrates for flat panel displays, optical windows, hard disk drives, or photonic applications require square or rectangular wafer chucks. Although chucks come in various shapes, sizes, and materials, they’re usually round and slightly larger than the size of a wafer.
In most cases, chucks have circular vacuum grooves or patterns comprised of micro-holes that enable them to fasten the wafers in place. Lift pins fitted into the chuck assembly allow the plates to automatically raise and lower the wafers throughout the wafer manufacturing and testing process.
Since different types of base materials are used to manufacture chuck plates, the thermal conductivity varies greatly. Most manufacturers prefer aluminum chuck plates because of their superior thermal conductivity and cost. However, some applications require wafer chucks made from brass, bronze, stainless steel, copper, ceramics, or glass.
What’s more, wafer chucks also have a wide variety of insulating or conductive surfaces. Coating options include anodized aluminum, zinc, gold, or nickel plating. Although their base material and coating may vary, the range of their flatness specification is usually within 4 µm to 10 µm.
At Wafer World, we manufacture high-quality wafers at a reasonable price. Contact us today to request a quote.
