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A Study of Integrated Circuit Dicing Tape When Used in a Plasma Dicing Environment

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2020-01-15
JournalIEEE Transactions on Components Packaging and Manufacturing Technology
AuthorsHarry S. Fulton, Oliver Ansell, Janet Hopkins, Martin Haničinec, Takuo Nishida
InstitutionsSPTS Technologies (United Kingdom), Linde (Germany)
Citations1

The main objective of this article is to establish which of the many dicing tapes used in the semiconductor industry would be most suitable for use in plasma dicing. Tape design over the past 40 years has continually evolved through advancements in both dicing technologies and the incessant revision of integrated circuit packaging. Die singulation has traditionally been accomplished using a diamond saw, laser-based technology, or a combination of both. The stress on dicing tape was, therefore, limited to fatigue through the physical nature of saw dicing or heat energies induced during laser dicing. These processes do not expose dicing tape to either a high vacuum or a variety of plasma chemistries. This investigative work is a continuation of studies examining the dicing tape behavior when used in plasma dicing. Results show that polyolefin (PO) UV tape with low-to-medium adhesion strength exhibits the greatest resilience under harsh plasma etch conditions and that efficient photoinitiated cross linking (or curing) of the adhesive is triggered if directly exposed to the photonic energies present in a pure SF6 plasma or full plasma dicing process. However, the postplasma dice, post-UV cure adhesive strength can still be minimized if the tape manufacturers recommended time limitations between which the tape mount, plasma dice, and die pickup process are adhered to.

  1. 1996 - Method of anisotropically etching silicon
  2. 2013 - The discrete vacuum packaging reliability issue in MEMS