Dicing before Grinding: A Robust Wafer Thinning and Dicing Technology

The never-ending trend for package miniaturization has been driving the semiconductor industry to the brink of technology. Hence, development of new technologies is necessary to cope up with the demand for advance and aggressive process capabilities.

The paper is all about the challenges in developing and installing a robust 50 µm wafer thinning and dicing capability in ST Calamba. As silicon wafers are grinded thinner, the more it becomes sensitive to mechanical stress and vibration. The conventional mechanical dicing process induce a lot of mechanical stress and vibration during the cutting process which oftentimes lead to backside chipping and die crack issues. Backside chippings serves as fracture points at the back of the dice, which significantly reduce its die strength. This dilemma was addressed with the use of a breakthrough technology known as Dicing Before Grinding (DBG).