Blade Dicing Research Articles

Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc., in China: Transferring Knowledge (a) and (B) (Abridged)

This version condenses the two parts of “K&S Industries Inc. in China: Transferring Knowledge (A) and (B)” into a single-use case. Suitable for the MBA, EMBA, GEMBA, and executive education programs, the case presents a manufacturer of semiconductor assembly equipment looking to achieve growth in its wire bonding tools segment—in particular, capillaries and dicing saw blades—through geographic expansion. At the time, it manufactured capillaries in Yokneam, Israel, and blades in Santa Clara, California. While much of the work on outsourcing to China focuses on the low cost and its tradeoffs, this case examines in depth the interaction between human capital and a firm's cost and capabilities.The expansion committee team is charged with designing and opening a new facility in Suzhou, China. Expanding operations to China meant cost savings, and it was where K&S's market had expanded. But it wasn't clear whether it made sense to move the capillary process, the dicing blade manufacturing, or both. And if K&S did move to China, it would keep the Israeli-based factory open but close the American-based. If both were moved, what order would make sense given that one existing factory would be closed down and the other kept open? And once those decisions were made, what exactly would the knowledge transfer look like? Excerpt UVA-OM-1500 Rev. Jul. 10, 2014 KULICKE AND SOFFA INDUSTRIES, INC., IN CHINA: TRANSFERRING KNOWLEDGE (A) AND (B) (ABRIDGED) Shay Torton, a general manager for Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. (K&S), and Ilan Gilboa and Shlomit Drori, from K&S Israel, were members of a committee put together in early 2002 to manage the firm's expansion processes. K&S, a manufacturer of semiconductor assembly equipment, was looking to achieve growth in its wire bonding tools segment—in particular, capillaries and dicing saw blades—through geographic expansion and entry into new markets. At the time, it manufactured capillaries in Yokneam, Israel, and blades in Santa Clara, California. The team, mindful of the substantial expense involved, had been charged with designing and opening a new facility in Suzhou, China. The strategic shifting of manufacturing to more cost-effective areas had been well researched (see Exhibit 1 for an economic comparison of different regions). The city of Suzhou was chosen for several reasons: its proximity to several K&S customers and to Shanghai, relative low cost of living, ability to manufacture six days a week, abundant worker supply, and low labor costs. An 80 km2 industrial park offered a reliable infrastructure, plentiful public transportation, and an easy one-stop government approval service. Much conversation at the senior executive level was about the possibility of transferring both capillary and dicing blade production to Suzhou. . . .

Process Innovations to Prevent Glass Substrate Fracture From RDL Stress and Singulation Defects

Glass is an ideal material for package substrates due to the excellent electrical properties, tailorable coefficient of thermal expansion, high mechanical rigidity, availability in large and thin panel form, and smooth surface for fine line fabrication. Glass does have challenges, arising mainly from the brittle nature of glass, and glass substrates with copper and polymer re-distribution layers can suffer brittle fracture after dicing processes. This paper demonstrates three methods to prevent cracking induced by redistribution layer (RDL) stress and dicing defect in glass substrates for RDL build-up up to $90~ {\mu }\text{m}$ polymer and $40~ {\mu }\text{m}$ copper. These methods are edge coating, two-step dicing, and laser ablation dicing. Edge coating is a protective layer of polymer located on the diced edge of the glass substrate. After dicing, edge coating puts the glass in compression and prevents moisture from reaching the glass and, in turn, prevents the glass cracking from RDL stresses and dicing defects. In two-step dicing, the first step is used to ablate the RDL using a laser and the second step is used for blade dicing within the ablated region to singulate the glass. The resulting structure from such a dicing process reduces stress at the free glass edge, ensuring that the glass does not crack during dicing. Two-step dicing also allows for thicker RDL build-ups while ensuring no glass cracking occurs from dicing defects. Laser ablation dicing uses a CO2 laser to singulate the glass panel into individual substrates instead of blade dicing, which reduces the dicing defect size and creates a heat affected zone. Use of laser ablation dicing allows for thicker RDL build-ups with minimal process change when compared to blade dicing.

High Aspect-Ratio Neural Probes using Conventional Blade Dicing

Exploring deep neural circuits has triggered the development of long penetrating neural probes. Moreover, driven by brain displacement, the long neural probes require also a high aspect-ratio shafts design. In this paper, a simple and reproducible method of manufacturing long-shafts neural probes using blade dicing technology is presented. Results shows shafts up to 8 mm long and 200 µm wide, features competitive to the current state-of-art, being its outline simply accomplished by a single blade dicing program. Therefore, conventional blade dicing presents itself as a viable option to manufacture long neural probes.

A 45° saw-dicing process applied to a glass substrate for wafer-level optical splitter fabrication for optical coherence tomography

This paper reports on the development of a technology for the wafer-level fabrication of an optical Michelson interferometer, which is an essential component in a micro opto-electromechanical system (MOEMS) for a miniaturized optical coherence tomography (OCT) system. The MOEMS consists on a titanium dioxide/silicon dioxide dielectric beam splitter and chromium/gold micro-mirrors. These optical components are deposited on 45° tilted surfaces to allow the horizontal/vertical separation of the incident beam in the final micro-integrated system. The fabrication process consists of 45° saw dicing of a glass substrate and the subsequent deposition of dielectric multilayers and metal layers. The 45° saw dicing is fully characterized in this paper, which also includes an analysis of the roughness. The optimum process results in surfaces with a roughness of 19.76 nm (rms). The actual saw dicing process for a high-quality final surface results as a compromise between the dicing blade’s grit size (#1200) and the cutting speed (0.3 mm s−1). The proposed wafer-level fabrication allows rapid and low-cost processing, high compactness and the possibility of wafer-level alignment/assembly with other optical micro components for OCT integrated imaging.

Second harmonic generation of diamond-blade diced KTiOPO4 ridge waveguides.

We report on the fabrication of ridge waveguides in KTiOPO4 nonlinear optical crystals through carbon ion irradiation followed by precise diamond blade dicing. The diced side-walls have low roughness, which allows for low propagation loss of ~1dB/cm in fabricated of ridges. The waveguide property investigation has been performed at 1064 nm as well as 532 nm, showing good guidance at both TE and TM polarizations. Based on type II phase matching configuration, efficient second harmonic generation of green light at room temperature has been realized. High conversion efficiencies of ~1.12%W-1 and ~12.4% have been obtained for frequency doubling under the pump of continuous-wave (CW) and pulsed fundamental waves at 1064 nm, respectively.

Guided-wave second harmonics in Nd:YCOB ridge waveguides produced by combination of carbon ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing

We report on the fabrication of Nd:YCa4O(BO3)3 (Nd:YCOB) ridge waveguides by combining carbon ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing. The guiding and spectroscopic properties of the planar as well as ridge waveguides are investigated. The second harmonic generation (SHG) at 532 nm has been realized through the waveguide structures. With nearly the same input power, the maximum average output powers are 0.56 mW and 0.62 mW, and the maximum conversion efficiencies reach 0.3%W−1 and 0.5%W−1, for planar and ridge waveguides, respectively.

A wafer-level miniaturized Michelson interferometer on glass substrate for optical coherence tomography applications

The wafer-level fabrication of a Michelson interferometer using optical MEMS technologies is presented. The intended application is in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). The micro fabrication involves two steps: the 45° saw dicing of glass substrate and the subsequent deposition of a dielectric multilayer and metallic layers to obtain a beam splitter and waveguide micro mirrors, respectively. The Michelson interferometer was designed for use in the near-infrared range of 800–900nm. A 50/50 non-polarized beam splitter was obtained with only four layers (using titanium dioxide and silicon dioxide). The micro mirrors for the required spectral range were fabricated by sputtering of chromium and gold layers. The dicing cuts, which were performed with a custom-made 45° dicing blade, resulted in smooth slopes. The surface’s roughness is 19.76nm at setting and can be reduced to approximately 50% with a soft additional dicing cut. The height of the 45° surfaces was approximately 400μm, which is in accordance with the design. The micro Michelson interferometer can be easily integrated with other optical components into a complete OCT miniaturized system.

Optical ridge waveguides in Nd:LGS crystal produced by combination of swift C5+ ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing

We report on the fabrication of optical ridge waveguides in Nd:LGS crystal by using combination of swift C5+ ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing. The ridge structures support guidance both at 632.8nm and 1064nm wavelength along the TE and TM polarizations. The lowest propagation losses of the ridge waveguide for the TM mode are ~1.6dB/cm at 632.8nm and ~1.2dB/cm at 1064nm, respectively. The investigation of micro-fluorescence spectra and micro-Raman spectra indicates that the Nd3+ luminescence features have been well preserved and the microstructure of the waveguide region has no significant change after C5+ ion irradiation.

25-Gb/s Operation of a Polymer Optical Waveguide on an Electrical Hybrid LSI Package Substrate With Optical Card Edge Connector

We propose a high-capacity polymer-based optical and electrical LSI package integrated with multimode Si photonic transmitters and receivers. We describe the fabrication and characteristics of the polymer-based hybrid LSI package substrate with a polymer optical waveguide, a mirror, and optical card edge connectors. We fabricated optical mirrors with several angles ranging from 40° to 45° for the Si photonic grating coupler by using a dicing blade at an angle. The dicing mirror changed the emission angle for the grating coupler. We also realized a large lateral misalignment tolerance (±11.5 μm) between the polymer waveguide and MMF for 1 dB of excess loss at 24 channels. We obtained 1-dB coupling loss using an optical card edge connector at 1.3 μm because of the large tolerance. We realized 25-Gb/s error-free transmission per channel at 1.3 μm. We also describe here the error penalty and jitter due to modal noise generated by coupling mismatch.

Low loss ridge waveguides in lithium niobate thin films by optical grade diamond blade dicing.

We report on the fabrication and characterization of ridge waveguides in lithium niobate thin films by diamond blade dicing. The lithium niobate thin films with a thickness of 1 µm were fabricated by bonding a He-implanted lithium niobate wafer to a SiO(2)-coated lithium niobate wafer and crystal ion slicing. Propagation losses of 1.2 dB/cm for TE and 2.8 dB/cm for TM polarization were measured at 1550 nm for a 9.28 mm long and 2.1 µm wide waveguide using the Fabry-Perot method.

Development on PCD dicing blade for SiC semiconductor substrate

Development on PCD dicing blade for SiC semiconductor substrate

Quasi-phase-matched frequency conversion in ridge waveguides fabricated by ion implantation and diamond dicing of MgO:LiNbO(3) crystals.

We report on the fabrication and second harmonic generation from a periodically-poled MgO-doped lithium niobate ridge waveguide within the telecommunication L-band. The ridge waveguide is fabricated by carbon ion implantation and the following diamond blade dicing method. A normalized second harmonic conversion efficiency of 20.3%W-1cm-2 was obtained with a total insertion loss of 4.3dB at wavelength of 1612.7nm. Our analysis shows that at least ~70% of the second-order nonlinearity was preserved after the implantation and thermal annealing process.

Multi Beam Full Cut Dicing of Thin Si IC wafers

Over the last years singulation of thin semiconductor wafers with (ultra) low-κ top layer has become a challenge in the production process of integrated circuits. The traditional blade dicing process is encountering serious yield issues. These issues can be addressed by applying a laser grooving process prior to the blade dicing, which is the process of reference nowadays. However, as the wafers are becoming thinner this process flow is not providing the yield and productivity required. In this article the unique ASMPT multi beam technology is presented which addresses both concerns and enables a high productivity laser dicing process with a limited heat affected zone and sufficient die strength.

Mid-infrared ZnSe ridge waveguides fabricated by swift Kr^8+ ion irradiation combined with precise diamond blade dicing

We report on the fabrication of ridge waveguides in zinc selenide (ZnSe) crystal by using swift Kr8+ ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing. The ridge waveguides operating at mid-infrared wavelength of 4 μm support multi-mode guidance. The minimum propagation loss of the ridge waveguide is measured to be as low as ~1.1 dB/cm. The simulated modal profiles of the ridge waveguides are in good agreement with the measured near-field intensity distributions. The micro-Raman spectra indicate that there is no significant lattice change in the ZnSe waveguides after the Kr8+ ion irradiation.

Mid-infrared ridge waveguide in MgO:LiNbO3 crystal produced by combination of swift O5+ ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing

We report on the fabrication of ridge waveguide operating at mid-infrared wavelength in MgO:LiNbO3 crystal by using O5+ ion irradiation and precise diamond blade dicing. The waveguide shows good guiding properties at the wavelength of 4μm along the TM polarization. Thermal annealing has been implemented to improve the waveguiding performances. The propagation loss of the ridge waveguide has been reduced to be 1.0dB/cm at 4μm after annealing at 310°C. The micro-Raman spectra indicate that the microstructure of the MgO:LiNbO3 crystal has no significant change along the ion track after swift O5+ ion irradiation.

Comparison of Different Novel Chip Separation Methods for 4H-SiC

Mechanical blade dicing is a state-of-the-art technique for the chip separation of SiC devices. Due to the hardness of SiC this technique suffers from low feed rate and high wear of the diamond coated dicing blade, resulting in the risk of uncontrolled tool breakage during the dicing process. With the upcoming transition to 150 mm diameter of SiC wafers this technique will most probably reach its limit. For dicing SiC wafers of those diameters on a productive scale three alternative dicing technologies are considered in this paper: ablation laser dicing, Stealth Dicing and Thermal Laser Separation. All these methods are based on laser processing. The benefits of these technologies are discussed in detail and compared to the classical mechanical diamond blade dicing, including a brief summary of first experimental results on each of the three laser dicing technologies.

Thermal Laser Separation – A Novel Dicing Technology Fulfilling the Demands of Volume Manufacturing of 4H-SiC Devices

One challenge for volume manufacturing of 4H-SiC devices is the state-of-the-art wafer dicing technology – the mechanical blade dicing which suffers from high tool wear and low feed rates. In this paper we discuss Thermal Laser Separation (TLS) as a novel dicing technology for large scale production of SiC devices. We compare the latest TLS experimental data resulting from fully processed 4H-SiC wafers with results obtained by mechanical dicing technology. Especially typical product relevant features like process control monitoring (PCM) structures and backside metallization, quality of diced SiC-devices as well as productivity are considered. It could be shown that with feed rates up to two orders of magnitude higher than state-of-the-art, no tool wear and high quality of diced chips, TLS has a very promising potential to fulfill the demands of volume manufacturing of 4H-SiC devices.

Planar and ridge ZnO optical waveguides produced by 15 MeV C^5+ ion irradiation

In this work swift-heavy C5+ ion irradiation with energy of 15 MeV was taken place in ZnO crystal. Planar waveguide is observed in the ion beam affected region, showing single-mode optical confinement for both TE and TM polarization, with propagation loss at a low level. Refractive index profile of the waveguide was reconstructed, showing an optical “barrier” in the ion trajectory. Furthermore, ridge waveguides with good propagation properties were produced by precise diamond blade dicing. This is the first time to our knowledge the formation of 2-dimensional waveguides in ZnO crystal, using ion beam technique.

Optimization of diode pumped solid state ultraviolet laser dicing of silicon carbide chips using design of experiment methodology

This paper investigates the laser micromachining of SiC-4H wafers with an ultraviolet (355 nm) nanosecond source. The design of experiment methodology was used to study the effect of pulse energy, number of passes, defocus, and scanning speed on scribing depth and was modeled with Design Expert® software. Pulse energy and scanning speed were found to have a significant effect on scribe depth (by a factor of 10 compared to defocus), while the effect of the number of passes varied with pulse energy and scanning speed. The model predicted a narrow set of processing parameters to scribe half of the wafer thickness (180/360 μm). A more fundamental study was also conducted in order to validate literature observations on the ablation mechanism. A brief comparison between conventional blade dicing and the laser scribe-break method was performed on a 3 in. diameter wafer. It was discovered that a possible gain of gross die (number of usable chips per wafer) of 7% could be achieved which could provide a useful economic benefit.

Multi Beam Full Cut Dicing of Thin Si IC Wafers

The ongoing trend to thinner wafers which are needed for continuous miniaturization, 3D packaging and IC performance, inevitably means that sole blade dicing evolution is coming to an end. Over the last years several technologies to handle the separation process of thin Si wafer dicing have been evaluated (DBG, Stealth, Plasma, etc). Although they are capable for certain applications to meet the process specifications, they achieve this at expense of flexibility, productivity and process costs. ALSI, the inventor of multi beam dicing for semiconductor materials, has developed a technology using a multi beam laser concept which allows to dice through thin Si IC wafers while achieving a die strength equal or higher than achieved with blade dicing. In this single step process a multi beam laser configuration allows to remove the (ultra) low-K and metal top structures, dice through the Si substrate and recover the die strength (>450MPa for a 70um Si wafer). This technology allows the semiconductor industry to continue with the development of advanced node wafer technology utilizing (ultra) low-K and thick metal structures while having a separation technology that can cope with all these process steps. The presentation will address how the multi beam laser dicing process is an enabling technology and the first process in the world that can meet the die strength criteria without the need of additional process steps which increase the cost and reduce the flexibility and yield of the process. Multi beam laser dicing allows semiconductor manufacturers to execute their technology roadmap in a cost efficient manner. This presentation will address in depth, the challenges and issue's that semiconductor manufacturers are facing with respect to the dicing of thin (ultra) low-K IC wafers. We will present the die strength and quality that has been achieved using the multi beam dicing technology and compare this to other separation technologies. We will disclose how a multi beam process will play a dominant role in achieving an extremely small Heat Affected Zone combined with a significantly higher productivity. It will be demonstrated how a unique combination and optimization of multiple beams, pulse duration, and low pulse energy, can meet the challenging requirements set by the industry. In addition dicing results and achieved productivities will be presented.