Adoption of hybrid dicing technique to minimize sawing-induced damage during semiconductor wafer separation

Abstract

This article demonstrates that the chipping damage resulting from silicon wafer separation can be more effectively suppressed by the adoption of hybrid dicing (a duel process that uses laser ablation prior to mechanical sawing) than single dicing, such as sawing. This work shows that the adoption of the hybrid dicing technique induces sacrificial fracture at the laser-induced groove tip to save the regions outside of the groove formed along the scribe region of the wafer. Particularly, this study details how a pre-existing groove (i.e., a laser-induced groove) on the front surface of the wafer interacts with the saw blade penetration-induced trench during the second step of the hybrid dicing process. According to the experimental results, the magnitude of the chipping damage in the chips diced from a wafer including a laser-induced groove with a larger aspect ratio was more effectively reduced at a more rapid sawing velocity. However, since a laser-induced groove with a larger aspect ratio could also have a bigger curvature in its tip, adopting a groove with the optimum shape was necessary for effective prevention of dicing-induced damage during hybrid dicing.