Formation of cleaved grooves in a passivation layer formed over a surface of a wafer prior to wafer singulation
AssigneeInfinera Corporation
InventorsCharles Joyner, Mark Missey, Radhakrishnan Nagarajan, Frank Peters, Mehradad Ziari, Fred Kish
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Cleaved grooves, also referred to herein as “cleave streets”, are formed exclusively in a wafer passivation layer overlaying a wafer to provide for correctly aligned and sharp cleaves prior to singulation of the wafer into separate die or chips. The deployment of cleave streets is applicable to both Group III-V-base wafers, such as InP-based wafers with photonic integrated circuits (PICs), and silicon-based wafers with integrated circuits where such wafers utilize a passivating layer
Claims8
In a wafer comprising:
- a plurality of integrated circuits formed in the wafer each circuit having a plurality of integrated components formed on a wafer surface;
- at least one passivation layer overlaying the wafer surface;
- and
- a plurality of linear cleave grooves formed exclusively in the wafer overlying passivation layer, a pattern of the cleave grooves defining circuit boundaries in the wafer for their subsequent singulation from the wafer.
A method of cleaving a wafer into a plurality of die which contain a circuit, comprising the steps of:
- forming at least one passivation layer over a surface of the wafer;
- forming cleave grooves exclusively within the passivation layer or layers where the grooves define the circuit die boundaries within the wafer;
- and
- cleaving the die from the wafer where cleaving action follows the formed passivation layer cleave grooves.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.