Wafer dicing is among the processes popular in the semiconductor industry. This is a way of separating a die from the wafer of semiconductor which is accomplished using several methods like scribing and breaking, by mechanical sawing, or by laser cutting. Using wafer dicing machine, wafers are cut into individual semiconductor chips, by making use of dicing blades.

‘Wafer dicing methods’

Scribing and breaking – usually is performed in a substrate made of a brittle material where good-quality cutting surface of the substrate can be achieved without any defects such as chippings on the substrate. This method of semiconductor wafer separation is achieved by developing a stress in the wafer and fracturing the wafer along the stress line. A line should be created in the wafer surface along the street where in fact the break is desired.

Mechanical sawing – the process is done utilizing a mechanical machine called dicing saw; this technique can be used for a micro electro-mechanical system semiconductor devices. While there are still manufacturers that utilize this method, it is slowly getting unpopular due to several disadvantages – the procedure is slow, contaminant-laden, and dependent on regular shapes.

Laser cutting – a new and more effective technology to cut semiconductor materials; the process functions by directing the output of a high-power laser at the material to be cut. This technique burns or vaporizes away the unwanted parts, leaving an edge with a high-quality surface finish.
‘Dicing precious stone dice ‘

As mentioned above, dicing blades are used and are a significant element for the dicing process. There are various types of dicing blades plus some of them are the following:

Hubbed Nickel Bonded Blades – that is used to cut Silicon and III-V materials. This blade is ultra-thin and created using a special electrodepositing technique to contain the cutting diamonds in a nickel alloy matrix.

Hubbed Resin Bonded Blades – with this particular type of blade, you don’t have to buy expensive flanges as the resinoid blade is permanently mounted to its own hub. Instead of flanges, once the blade is dressed, it might be detached and reattached again without going through the dressing process.

Hubless Resin Bonden Blades – this sort of dicing blade performs extremely well on materials like ceramic, quartz, sapphire and glass. This may give minimum chipping and superior finish.

Metal Sintered Dicing Blades – that is a type of blade that is developed by capturing diamonds in a metal binder using sintering process – this is a very rigid blade and contains an extremely low wear rates. These properties offer the ability to create very straight cuts even though subjected to large exposures.