US 4,569,326 AGranted

Dicing apparatus

AssigneeFujitsu Limited

InventorsAkinori Tanizaki, Noboru Ando, Satoshi Terayama, Kunimichi Nakao

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Abstract

A dicing apparatus for cutting a semiconductor wafer into a plurality of a microelectronic circuit dice each having bonding pads which are located adjacent a cutting path on the wafer. The apparatus comprises a diamond dicing blade which is held between a pair of flanges, fitted to a spindle rotating at very high speed, the blade cutting the wafer along the cutting path in an up-cut and down-cut mode. Cooling wafer is applied from both sides of the rotating flanges and dicing blade, from a coolant nozzle and flows against a cutting interface. Each flange has an outer side surface such that, as the flange rotates, the major quantity of the cooling water flows along the outer side surface and violently flows onto a surface of the wafer which is beyond the edge of the bonding pad, to avoid the cutting debris from being driven into the bonding pad, when the dicing blade works in the down-cut mode. Each coolant nozzle is in the form of a slit along a coolant pipe which is located in parallel with and close to the surface of the wafer. The slit has a guard or a guide so that the cooling water spurts from the nozzle and flows toward the cutting interface at an angle to the surface of the wafer for cooling the cutting interface and effectively cooperating with the rotating flanges and dicing blade.

Claims8

Dependent claims

A dicing apparatus for separating a semiconductor wafer along a cutting path into a plurality of microelectronic circuit dice each having bonding pads along the opposite, adjacent sides of said cutting path on the surface of said wafer, said apparatus comprising:

a rotating spindle;
a dicing blade rotated by said spindle and having a cutting edge and parallel side surfaces;
a pair of flanges fitted on said spindle for holding said dicing blade therebetween with said cutting edge extending therebeyond, each of said pair of flanges having an outer side surface with an edge thereof positioned above the surface of said wafer and outwardly from the side surface of said blade a distance at least as long as the width of said bonding pad along the side of said bonding pad;
a coolant nozzle, positioned at the side of each of said flanges for providing substantially parallel flows of cooling water toward said dicing blade from the opposite side thereof, each said coolant nozzle extending substantially parallel to the path to be cut and having a coolant water ejecting slit extending longitudinally along and substantially parallel to the path to be cut for ejecting coolant water under pressure from the ejecting slit toward the outer side surface of the edge of said dicing blade, the major flow of coolant water from said ejecting slit striking said edge of the dicing blade.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.