Modular grinding apparatuses and methods for wafer thinning
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsChun-Ting KUO, Kei-Wei CHEN, Ying-Lang WANG, Kuo-Hsiu WEI
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Abstract
Methods of thinning a plurality of semiconductor wafers and apparatuses for carrying out the same are disclosed. A grinding module within a set of grinding modules receives and grinds a semiconductor wafer. A polishing module receives the semiconductor wafer from the grinding module and polishes the wafer. The polishing module is configured to polish the semiconductor wafer in less time than the grinding module is configured to grind the corresponding wafer.
Claims20
A method of thinning a set of semiconductor wafers, the method comprising:
- grinding a semiconductor wafer with a coarse grinding tool at a grinding module amongst a set of grinding modules;
- grinding the semiconductor wafer with a fine grinding tool at the grinding module;
- moving the semiconductor wafer to a polishing module, wherein the polishing module receives semiconductor wafers from more than one grinding module in the set of grinding modules;
- and
- polishing the semiconductor wafer at the polishing module, wherein the polishing module processes the semiconductor wafer in less time than the grinding module.
An apparatus for thinning semiconductor wafers, the apparatus comprising:
- a set of two or more grinding modules for grinding semiconductor wafers;
- at least one polishing module for polishing the semiconductor wafers configured to receive semiconductor wafers from at least one grinding module in the set of grinding modules;
- and
- a cleaning module for cleaning the semiconductor wafers configured to receive semiconductor wafers from the at least one polishing module.
An apparatus for thinning semiconductor wafers, the apparatus comprising:
- a set of grinding modules for grinding semiconductor wafers;
- a set of polishing modules for configured to receive the semiconductor wafers from the set of grinding modules and to polish the semiconductor wafers, wherein each polishing module of the set of polishing modules is configured to polish a semiconductor wafer in less time than a grinding module of the set of grinding modules is configured to grind a corresponding semiconductor wafer;
- and
- at least one cleaning module for configured to receive the semiconductor wafers from the set of polishing modules and to clean the semiconductor wafers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.