Papers by Keyword: Micro-Grooving

Abstract: Thinning of the silicon wafers and decrease in kerf loss can minimize the production costs of semiconductor products. Currently, the quantity of kerf loss is about the same as the volume of the wafer itself. If we drastically reduce kerf loss, we can easily lower production costs. Therefore, we studied techniques for slicing silicon wafers with reduced kerf loss using a wire tool. As a first step, we performed micro-grooving with a fine wire tool. In this paper, we discuss the micro-grooving performance of a fine wire tool made of tungsten. A borosilicate glass is used as the work material. The main conclusions are as follows: When a fine wire tool and small-diameter abrasives are used, the kerf loss decreases. However, the strength of fine wire tools is very low. The relative velocity and abrasive diameters have a significant influence on the micro-grooving characteristics. Fine wire tools are easily fractured at fast relative velocities and with large-diameter abrasives. However, the grooving rate increases. Groove depth and grooving efficiency do not depend on the relative velocity and are dependent on the abrasive diameter.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to achieve grooving on glass substrates with high levels of efficiency and precision with the use of a diamond grindstone with a small diameter in the range of 1.0-1.8 mm. Mechanical material removal by grinding has high efficiency and enables process control for creating complicated forms, but has a drawback of generating chippings on the processed surface of the brittle glass material. The study gave ultrasonic vibration of 10 μm at 20 kHz in the thrust direction to the rotating small-diameter diamond grindstone in the grinding process, in order to attain high levels of efficiency and precision in micro-grooving of glass. The grooving approach with ultrasonic vibration did create some minor chippings, but succeeded in meeting the target of reducing the average size of chippings around the groove to 0.1 mm or less.

Abstract: A workpiece with a large surface area is likely to be uneven due to form error and waviness. These geometric disturbances can cause inaccurate micro shapes to be formed when micro features are micro-grooved into the surface and cause the resulting workpiece to fail to function as desired. Thus, the real-time monitoring and compensation is required to guarantee the form accuracy of micro features while machining the workpiece with a large surface area. In this study, a method is suggested for real-time measurement and compensation of geometric errors for the micro grooving of a large flat surface using a laser displacement sensor placed ahead of the cutting tool. Experimental results show that the compensated surface profiles fit the measured ones within an allowable tolerance even at cutting speeds as high as 200 mm/s.