Conventional process

TGM

Thin Grinding Mounting

Overview of Conventional Process (TGM)

The standard semiconductor manufacturing process can be broadly divided into two processes. One is the process of forming a circuit on the substrate (wafer) surface, which is called the “front-end process”. The other is the process of cutting the circuit-formed substrate into small die and placing them into a package, which is called the “back-end process” or packaging process. In the conventional packaging process of the semiconductor manufacturing, the substrate (wafer) is ground to the designated thickness and then die separation (dicing, cutting process) is performed.

Process Workflow 1: Processing by Each Equipment (Stand-Alone)

(Each step is performed by stand-alone equipment)

Protective tape (BG tape for backside grinding) is laminated onto the wafer surface’s circuit, the backside of the wafer is ground down to the designated thickness, and then the protective tape is removed from the wafer surface. Next, dicing tape (for cutting) is mounted onto the wafer backside and the wafer is cut from the surface into die. The dicing tape keeps the die from scattering after dicing.

Process Workflow 2: Processing Partly Using In-line Equipment

In silicon semiconductor manufacturing, Φ300 mm wafers are increasingly becoming mainstream to improve productivity. In addition, wafers are thinned to approximately 100 μm for high-profile packaging. Since thinned large-diameter wafers have a high risk of wafer-level breakage, various preventive measures are required for processing.
For example, if a polishing process is needed for the removal of grinding damage after wafer thinning, multiple-processing equipment capable of grinding using a grinding wheel and dry polishing lowers the risk of wafer-level breakage during wafer transfer. It is also effective for reducing that risks of always supporting the wafer with tapes by reversing the order of BG tape removal and dicing tape mounting. Integrating grinding functions and tape mounting/removal functions into an inline system reduces the frequency of wafer transfer and lowers the risk of wafer-level breakage. In these processing methods, dicing is performed after grinding (polishing) (same as Process Workflow 1).