A study of the effect of tool cutting edge radius on ductile cutting of silicon wafers

Ductile mode cutting of silicon wafers can be achieved under certain cutting conditions and tool geometry. An experimental investigation of the critical undeformed chip thickness in relation to the tool cutting edge radius for the brittle-ductile transition of chip formation in cutting of silicon wafers is presented in this paper. Experimental tests for cutting of silicon wafers using diamond tools of different cutting edge radii for a range of undeformed chip thickness are conducted on an ultra-precision lathe. Both ductile and brittle mode of chip formation processes are observed in the cutting tests. The results indicate that ductile cutting of silicon can be achieved at certain values of the undeformed chip thickness, which depends on the tool cutting edge radius. It is found that in cutting of silicon wafers with a certain tool cutting edge radius there is a critical value of undeformed chip thickness beyond which the chip formation changes from ductile mode to brittle mode. The ductile-brittle transition of chip formation varies with the tool cutting edge radius. Within the range of cutting conditions in the present study, it has also been found that the larger the cutting edge radius, the larger the critical undeformed chip thickness for the ductile-brittle transition in the chip formation.     

CompactLogix5370在硅片激光打孔机上的应用

本文就在硅片激光打孔机中使用了中型控制系统CompactLoglx5370及先进的PowerProgramming编程方法进行了介绍,通过项目的实施,提高了设备厂商的自动化程度以及运营效率.     

High-speed dicing of silicon wafers conducted using ultrathin blades

High-speed dicing tests were conducted for silicon wafers using developed ultrathin electroplated diamond blades with metal bond. Chipping and kerf widths of 1.5 and 28 μm, respectively, are achieved by the developed ultrathin diamond blades. The calculated maximum undeformed chip thickness varied from 9.6 to 25.5 nm for various high-speed dicing conditions. The variation tendency between experimental chip width induced by three diamond blades and corresponding calculated maximum undeformed chip thickness is consistent. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the microstructure of diamond dicing blades significantly affected the chip width.     

A state-of-the-art review of ductile cutting of silicon wafers for semiconductor and microelectronics industries

Silicon is a typical functional material for semiconductor and optical industry. Many hi-tech products like lenses in thermal imaging, solar cells, and some key products of semiconductor industry are made of single crystal silicon. Silicon wafers are used as substrate to build vast majority of semiconductor and microelectronic devices. To meet high surge in demand for microelectronics based products in recent years, the development of rapid and cost efficient processes is inevitable to produce silicon wafers with high-quality surface finish. The current industry uses a sequence of processes such as slicing, edge grinding, finishing, lapping, polishing, back thinning, and dicing. Most of these processes use grinding grains or abrasives for material removal. The mechanism of material removal in these processes is fracture based which imparts subsurface damage when abrasive particles penetrate into the substrate surface. Most of these traditional processes are extremely slow and inefficient for machining wafers in bulk quantity. Moreover, the depth of subsurface damage caused by these processes can be up to few microns and it is too costly and time consuming to remove this damage by heavy chemical–mechanical polishing process. Therefore, semiconductor industry requires some alternative process that is rapid and cost effective for machining silicon wafers. Ductile cutting of silicon wafer has the potential to replace the tradition wafer machining processes efficiently. If implemented effectively in industry, ductile cutting of silicon wafers should reduce the time and cost of wafer machining and consequently improve the productivity of the process. This paper reviews and discusses machining characteristics associated with ductile cutting of silicon wafers. The limitations of traditional wafer fabrication, the driving factors for switching to ductile cutting technology, basic mechanism of ductile cutting, cutting mechanics, cutting forces, surface topography, thermal aspects, and important factors affecting these machining characteristics have been discussed to give a systematic insight into the technology.     

Nano‐scratch study of molecular deposition films on silicon wafers using nano‐indentation

Experiments on molecular deposition (MD) films with and without alkyl terminal groups deposited on silicon wafers were conducted using nano‐indentation. It was found that MD films and alkyl‐terminated MD films exhibit a higher critical load and a lower coefficient of friction than the silicon substrate. The critical load increases with the number of layers, and the coefficients of friction of MD films with alkyl terminal groups are lower than those of the corresponding MD films with the same number of layers but without alkyl terminal groups.     

基于五束光的三维多普勒测振仪设计

为了实现物体的三维振动分析测量,设计了一种基于五束激光的多普勒振动测量系统.该系统将五束激光汇聚到一个焦点,并照射到被反射膜覆盖的被测物体表面,经过反射后,散射光被光电二极管接收,并进入高精度信号处理系统,分别得到五路振动信息,通过计算机处理后,可以分别解析得到包括频率和振幅的三维振动信息.实验结果表明,该系统有望被应用于高精度的无接触振动测量.     

Micro-drilling of monocrystalline silicon using a cutting tool

The micro-drilling of monocrystalline silicon using a cutting tool was tested with the aim of fabricating three-dimensional and high aspect ratio micro-shapes. Micro-tools with a D-shaped cross-section and cutting edge radius of 0.5 μm were fabricated by wire electrodischarge grinding (WEDG). The results showed that, with a depth of cut of 0.1 μm, ductile-regime cutting was realized, and that a tool clearance angle larger than 0° was necessary to prevent fractures at the hole entrance. The smallest machinable hole was of 6.7 μm diameter, which is the smallest not just in the present study, but of all holes drilled using a cutting tool so far. Furthermore, an aspect ratio of more than four was obtained in the drilling of a 22 μm diameter and 90 μm deep hole.     

Effects of deep subsurface damages on surface nanostructure formation in laser recovery of grinded single-crystal silicon wafers

A nanosecond pulsed Nd:YVO₄ laser was irradiated on a boron-doped single-crystal silicon wafer after rough and fine grinding processes to recover the grinding-induced subsurface damages. The surface topography of samples was investigated by using a white-light interferometer, a scanning electron microscope, and an atomic force microscope; while the crystallinity was analyzed by a laser micro-Raman spectrometer. It was found that surface nanostructures were generated by the Mullins-Sekerka instability, which remained on the surface under recoil pressure and surface tension. The rough grinding-induced deep subsurface damages influenced the interface instability between liquid and solid silicon during recrystallization process. By increasing pulse width and decreasing laser peak irradiance, the subsurface damage was recovered and a flat surface with surface roughness of ~1 nm Sa was obtained. This study reveals important correlations among grinding-induced latent subsurface defects, laser peak irradiance and nanoscale surface topography formation in laser recovery, which contributes to high quality silicon wafer manufacturing.     

工业用数控激光切管机研制

介绍了一种新型金属管材激光切割设备.该机采用激光头轴向移动,由电动卡盘带动工件旋转的方法合成切割轨迹,实现了分段式切割,对不同直径的工件无需更换卡块,并采用辅助空气冷却的切割方法实现了低氧压切割,耗氧量比传统设备节省了2/3.该设备最大单程切割长度1000mm,切割表面粗糙度≤6.3μm,孔位精度为±0.1mm/m,辅助氧气压力≤0.15MPa.     

Simultaneous measurement of emissivity and temperature of silicon wafers using a polarization technique

The emissivity of a silicon wafer under various conditions was theoretically and experimentally investigated. A quantitative relationship between the ratio of p-polarized to s-polarized radiances, and the polarized emissivity was obtained, irrespective of the emissivity change of silicon wafers due to oxide film thickness under wide variations of impurity concentration. We propose a new radiation thermometry method that can measure both the temperature and the spectral polarized emissivity of a silicon wafer, and we estimate the uncertainty of these measurements. Currently, the expanded uncertainty of the temperature measurement is estimated to be 3.52 K (2k) and 3.80 (2k) for p-polarization and s-polarization, respectively, at temperatures above 900 K.     

Laser straight cutting of alumina tiles: thermal stress analysis

In the present study, laser straight cutting of alumina tiles is carried out. Temperature and thermal stress fields developed in the cutting section are modeled and predicted through the finite element method. The geometric features of the cut sections are examined using optical and scanning electron microscopes. Temperature predictions are validated with the thermocouple data. The X-ray diffraction technique is incorporated to measure the residual stress at the cut surface vicinity. It is found that the residual stress predicted agrees with that obtained from the X-ray diffraction technique. Striation patterns formed at the kerf surface have shallow depths because of the low thermal conductivity and high melting temperature of the workpiece. Dross attachment is observed at the bottom surface of the cut edges.     

Warping of silicon wafers subjected to back-grinding process

This study investigates warping of silicon wafers in ultra-precision grinding-based back-thinning process. By analyzing the interactions between the wafer and the vacuum chuck, together with the machining stress distributions in damage layer of ground wafer, the study establishes a mathematical model to describe wafer warping during the thinning process using the elasticity theory. The model correlates wafer warping with machining stresses, wafer final thickness, damage layer thickness, and the mechanical properties of the monocrystalline silicon. The maximum warp and the warp profile are measured on the wafers thinned to various thicknesses under different grinding conditions, and are used to verify the modeling results.     

An experimental study of edge radius effect on cutting single crystal silicon

According to the hypothesis of ductile machining, brittle materials undergo a transition from brittle to ductile mode once a critical undeformed chip thickness is reached. Below this threshold, the energy required to propagate cracks is believed to be larger than the energy required for plastic deformation, so that plastic deformation is the predominant mechanism of material removal in machining these materials in this mode. An experimental study is conducted using diamond cutting for machining single crystal silicon. Analysis of the machined surfaces under a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an atomic force microscope (AFM) identifies the brittle region and the ductile region. The study shows that the effect of the cutting edge radius possesses a critical importance in the cutting operation. Experimental results of taper cutting show a substantial difference in surface topography with diamond cutting tools of 0° rake angle and an extreme negative rake angle. Cutting with a diamond cutting tool of 0° rake angle could be in a ductile mode if the undeformed chip thickness is less than a critical value, while a ductile mode cutting using the latter tool could not be found in various undeformed chip thicknesses.     

Studies of chipping mechanisms for dicing silicon wafers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the chipping modes produced in the die edges of dicing silicon wafer using the thin diamond blades. The effects of dicing directions and different wafer types on the chipping size were studied. Furthermore, scratching tests were also used to assist the analysis of studying chipping conditions of the silicon wafer. The experimental results showed that the trace behaviors produced by the diamond indenter in the scratching test of silicon wafer can be divided into the three stages: rubbing, plastic deformation, cracking. The plastic pile up and crack of the scratching traces on the wafer mainly propagate along the development of the easiest slip direction family <110>. The chipping modes produced in dicing silicon wafer can be broadly classified as four types: (1) 30° chipping; (2) 60° chipping; (3) 90° chipping; (4) irregular chipping, which causes these mechanisms of chipping modes due to the meeting between the radial cracks of 30°, 60°, and 90° along the easiest slip direction family <110> and the lateral cracks along the easiest cleavage plane family {111}. When using the thin diamond blade diced on the (111) silicon wafer along the $ {\left[ {\overline{1} 10} \right]} $ direction, the size of top chipping produced was smaller than that of along the $ {\left[ {11\overline{2} } \right]} $ direction. Besides, for the (100) plane of silicon wafer, the size and the distribution of the chipping modes produced along the $ {\left[ {\overline{1} 10} \right]} $ and $ {\left[ {\overline{1} \overline{1} 0} \right]} $ directions were similar.     

Effects of taping on grinding quality of silicon wafers in backgrinding

Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering - Taping is often used to protect patterned wafers and reduce fragmentation during backgrinding of silicon wafers. Grinding experiments using coarse and fine...     

激光切割机中激光喷嘴设计研究

激光切割技术因其独特的优势,在现代制造领域占有越来越重要的地位。本文主要采用空气动力学原理对喷嘴内部进行了气流特性分析,提出了拉法尔喷嘴的设计方法,对于今后激光切割机中激光喷嘴设计具有一定指导作用。     

Preparation of cells cultured on silicon wafers for mass spectrometry analysis

The distribution of specific atoms and molecules within living cells is of high interest in bio-medical research. Laser secondary neutral mass spectrometry (laser-SNMS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) detect atoms with high sensitivity and spatial resolution. The application of these methods to cultured cells requires special preparation techniques preserving morphological and chemical integrity of the living cells. The cells should, therefore, be grown on a conducting material preventing charging of the sample during ion bombardment. Silicon is currently used as the preferred support material for non-biological samples in mass spectrometry. This study investigates (1) the influence of silicon surfaces on cell growth and (2) the suitability of a sandwiched, rapid freezing method to analyse transmembrane ion gradients. Human melanoma cells were grown on silicon with polished or etched surfaces. Growth kinetics were studied using the Sulforhodamine-B assay. Number, shape, and morphology of the cells were assessed by epifluorescence microscopy of calcein AM- and DAPI-stained cells. Cells were subjected to rapid freezing, freeze-fracturing, and freeze-drying prior to analysis by TOF-SIMS and laser-SNMS. While cell numbers and morphology on the rough silicon wafers were impaired, morphology and growth kinetics of cells on polished silicon were identical to control cells on cell culture tested polystyrene. TOF-SIMS and laser-SNMS resulted in high-resolution elemental images and mass spectra. Measurement of the intracellular Na+ and K+ concentrations revealed a ratio as observed in living cells. In conclusion, culturing cells on polished silicon wafers followed by sandwiched, rapid freezing is an adequate preparation method to study intracellular ion distribution with mass spectrometry.