Study on the performance of nanocomposite wire guides in wire sawing process

Abstract

In semiconductor wafer manufacturing, wire sawing is the first machining process to slice an ingot into hundreds of wafers. The cutting tool is a tiny wire which is wound on the wire guides. The material of the wire guides is essential to stabilize the process and to control the wafer thickness. However, there are few studies on the materials and the properties of the wire guides. In order to enhance the performance of wire sawing, this study investigated wire sawing process with the guides made of polyurethane reinforced by nanoTiO2 (PU/TiO2) and nanographite (PU/graphite). The results show the PU reinforced by nanoTiO2 was outperformed in wear resistance, although the surface roughness was slightly worse than the PU reinforced by nanographite.