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Silicon Wafer Dicing Technology

Wafers have the highest value at the dicing stage and the primary focus of a FWLDT® is to increase the number of dies, yield per wafer, and to maximize throughput while minimizing the HAZ specifically for “power hungry” RF micro devices and low-K wafer substrates.

Fonon DSS System is applicable for dicing of assorted semiconductor materials such as silicon (Si), gallium arsenide (GaAs), germanium (Ge), indium phosphide (InP), silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), gallium phosphide (GaP), other compound materials, as well as low-k and multi-layer composite materials.

BLACKSTAR™ series of a Wafer Dicing Systems utilizing a basic Fantom Width Laser Dicing Technology® (FWLDT®) invented and patented by Fonon Technology modified to accommodate the requirements of a silicon wafer singulation process without affecting the existent dicing method, processes and procedures.

The possibility of a cut with zero or 20 micron narrow width (application specific) allows wafer layout designers to reduce the width of the spacing between adjacent die on a wafer. The spacing is normally reserved to allow for the width of the saw used to cut the wafer. A reduction of the spacing width will result in an increase of the real estate available for die, which will result in a significant reduction of the cost per die.

The elimination of particles, debris and cutting fluids converts wafer dicing and separation into a “clean” operation. In certain areas of technology, i.e. MEMS, this attribute can almost be considered an enabler, since it will be possible to cut these devices without generating particles, which can damage these micro-mechanisms.

In addition, the elimination of cleaning steps and processing of cutting fluids introduces additional cost savings in the overall component fabrication process.

The elimination of wear items and consumables such as saw blades and scribes and the increased reliability associated with non-contact cutting versus a mechanical process, greatly decreases the cost of ownership of the equipment for the end-user.

Fonon’s Technology enables high-yield dicing and scribing of new materials, complicated layer stacks, and thin wafers including wafers with low-k dielectric and wafers with brittle material layers such as glass or silicon.

Significant Advantages of FTI’s Dicing and Separation Technology:

Dicing thin silicon with high mechanical integrity and no chips.
Higher yield for thin wafers.
No Micro-Cracks, fragmentation or chipping even for silicon below 100µm thick.
Dicing wafers with thick polymer layers such as wafer scale packages and alpha barriers.
No or minimal material loss means more parts per wafer (210 instead of 120 with mechanical saw).
High precision allows for smaller street width. Minimized Heat Affected Zone (HAZ).
BlackStar™ is an alternative to mechanical saws too damaging and costly for cutting of thin silicon, low-K, and complex material wafers.