Title: The development of a wire saw for wafer slicing of single-crystal silicon

Authors: Z.J. Hou, P.Q. Ge, Y.F. Gao

Addresses: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Shandong Jinan, China. ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Shandong Jinan, China. ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Shandong Jinan, China

Abstract: Most Integrated Circuit (IC) chips are built on single-crystal silicon wafers. The typical manufacturing process for silicon wafer includes: slicing, lapping or grinding and polishing, etc. The wafer slicing is a key technology that has influence on chip quality and cost. In this paper, the principle and characteristics of inner diameter saw and wire saw are summarised; a looped wire saw is developed. It uses fixed abrasive diamond looped wire that moves continually, which reduces or eliminates the influence on wafer surface accuracy for change in speed. This wire saw can provide a continuous speed range though electrical drive. Silicon bar is fixed on the worktable by a special fixture. The wire saw has two kinds feeding fashion. Some measures in design, machining and assembling are adopted to reduce the amplitude of wire vibration and to improve wafer-slicing quality. It is proved that this wire saw is excellent at wafer slicing, safe in prevention and convenient in operation.

Keywords: single crystal silicon; wafer slicing; looped wire saw; integrated circuits; inner diameter saw; fixed abrasive diamond wire; surface accuracy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2007.015260

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2007 Vol.29 No.2/3/4, pp.187 - 190

Published online: 30 Sep 2007 *

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