Experiments on Dicing Monocrystalline Silicon Wafer Using Micro Abrasive Water Jet

Abstract

The experiments on dicing monocrystalline silicon wafer using micro abrasive water jet turning were performed. A specifically designed water jet machine tool with four axes was developed and a specially designed cutting head has developed, in which the inside diameter of orifice and focusing tube is f125 mm and f500 mm respectively, while the silicon carbide solid abrasives with average diameter of 25-100 mm was used. In order to control the flow rate of micro abrasives precisely, an abrasive feed system with auger mechanism driven by DC motor reducer was used. The diameters of monocrystalline silicon bars are around 50 mm. Two basic turning methods, i.e. turning with stationary jet and turning with moving jet were applied. The preliminary experimental results such as kerf width, wafer thickness, surface quality etc. were analyzed. It was found that micro abrasive water jet can be used to precisely turn brittle materials like monocrystalline silicon. The turned wafer with thickness of 1 mm above could be achieved. A thinner wafer less than 1 mm is difficult to obtain during experiments because of cracking or chipping. Experiments demonstrate that the wafer surface has macro stripping characteristics similar to linear cutting. It was observed that there is less waviness and smooth surface on the turned wafer when with moving jet. And it depends greatly on the water jet pressure, feed rate of the jet, rotation speed of silicon bar, abrasive particle size as well as flow rate of abrasive. The detailed analysis indicates that the surface roughness of turned wafer with moving jet is around Ra 1.5-5.6 μm, while that of turned wafer with stationary jet is around Ra6.3 μm, when other conditions are same. The results show that surface quality turning with moving jet is obviously better than that of stationary jet. Smaller surface roughness of turned wafer could be obtained when finer abrasive is used. The experiment shows also that the wafer is typically tapered with either the stationary jet or moving jet. There is a concave on the turned surface when feed rate of the jet is too low or dwell time is too long. This is attributed to the jet rebound from one face to the other. Therefore there is an optimizing rotational speed during turning. This study indicates that dicing mono crystalline silicon wafer using micro abrasive water jet turning has potential application in semiconductor industry.