Dependence of Chipping Damage on the Crystallographic Orientation During the Mechanical Dicing of Silicon Wafers

This work focuses on the effect of changing the crystallographic orientation of the sawing direction on chipping damage in semiconductor wafers. It was found that for wafers with a (010)-predetermined dicing plane, the magnitude of chipping damage does not increase steadily with an increase in the revolving velocity of the saw blade, instead increasing rapidly from a sawing velocity of 30000 rpm. Nanoscale examinations show that this abrupt change arises because the dominant fracture mechanism in the rapid-sawing-induced groove in the shape of a trench transits from a shear fracture initiated at the corner region to a cleavage fracture along the (011) or (011) crystal plane deviating by 45° from the dicing plane.