Pressure is gradually becoming important in manufacturing semiconductors due to semiconductor’s miniaturization. Under this circumstance, manufacturing equipment and material manufacturers as well as semiconductor manufacturers have begun to use PRESCALE in various applications such as “measuring polishing pressure in a Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) equipment” ”checking pressure distribution of laminating press in manufacturing an Electrostatic chuck or a Ceramic heater” or ”measuring pressure distribution of a Molding machine” etc.
In this page, we will introduce some applications along the semiconductor manufacturing process. Of course, there are a lot of applications besides the followings, so if you want to measure surface pressure easily and at low cost, please feel free to request our samples.
Process
Front-end process (Wafer processing operation)
1. Purchase of silicon wafers
A silicon wafer is a disc-shaped piece of high-purity silicon. Wafer size is generally 200mm/300mm.
Some semiconductor manufacturers are now considering 450mm as a next generation standard.
2. Cleaning process
Since there are various kinds of dust or metal ions on the wafer immediately after purchase, they are removed with high-purity acid or alkali chemicals.
3. Film deposition process
The insulating film and conductive film used for semiconductors are deposited on a wafer.
4. Photolithography process
A circuit pattern is drawn (transferred) on a wafer with a reticle.
Checking the distribution of UV light
Checking the distribution of UV light irradiated on a photomask or a wafer. UVSCALE changes its surface color according to the amount of UV light and this allows you to confirm UV light distribution of the entire surface at a glance. So UVSCALE helps you check malfunctions of a UV lamp.
5. Ion implantation process
Some impurities such as phosphorus and boron which determine the electrical characteristics (P, N type) of semiconductors are implanted into the wafer.
6. Etching process
The deposited films are removed excepting films under the pattern of the regist.
Checking pressure distribution of laminating press in manufacturing electrostatic chucks and ceramic heaters.
Ceramic products such as an electrostatic chuck or a ceramic heater are manufactured through a laminating press process; however adjustment of ceramics is very difficult due to their powder form. On the other hand, high parallelism of an electrostatic chuck or a ceramic heater is essential for a wafer to absorb them. So ceramic products manufacturers use PRESCALE to check the parallelism of their products or maintain their qualities.
- * The following picture is in case of an electrostatic chuck.
Measuring contact pressure between a wafer and an electrostatic chuck.
In deposition and etching process, a wafer adsorbs an electrostatic chuck , and it gets heated through an electrostatic chuck during these processes. Parallelism of an electrostatic chuck directly affects heat conductivity between a wafer and an electrostatic chuck, and this may cause bad effects on semiconductor’s quality. Thus, some semiconductor manufacturers check contact pressure between them with PRESCALE.
Measuring contact pressure distribution and pressure range on a robot arm
PRESCALE is used for developing, improving and or maintaining robot arms operating in factories. With the help ofPRESCALE, factory workers can correlate its color distribution or color density with the damage to the wafer, and they can develop and improve their products by using the correlation data.
7. Deposition process
A wafer is covered with insulation films which separate wirings by each layer.
8. Chemical-mechanical polishing process
A wafer surface is polished and flattened in order to facilitate subsequent processes.
Measuring polishing pressure of a chemical machine polishing (CMP) equipment
PRESCALE is used to collect data for developing and improving CMP equipments or to maintain their operation in factories. They use PRESCALE to correlate its color distribution or color density with the damage to the wafer, and they develop and improve their products by using the correlation data.
Back-end process (Assembly process)
9. Pasting surface protection tape
A protection tape is attached on the circuit surface or a wafer in order to protect a circuit during back grinding.
Checking pressure distribution in covering a back grinding tape with a wafer
PRESCALE is used to check whether pressure distribution is correct or not. In particular, some semiconductor manufacturers do this to check their equipments when some defects are found in their products during the back-end process.
10. Backgrinding process
The back side of a wafer is grinded to be thin overall.
11. Pasting dicing tape
A dicing tape is applied to a wafer in order to fix it.
12. Dicing process
A wafer is cut into many tiny tips.
Checking the distribution of UV light on a dicing tape (UVSCALE)
UV scale is used to check the distribution of the total amount of the irradiated UV light. If UV light had irradiated sufficiently on a dicing tape, it would prevent the tape from coming off the wafer which can cause damage the wafer Thus checking the distribution of UV light on a whole surface of a dicing tape is very important.
13. Mounting process
A tip is mounted onto a metal lead frame.
Checking contact pressure between a wafer and a suction nozzle
PRESCALE is used to collect data for developing and improving suction nozzle or to maintain their correct operation in factories. PRESCALE can correlate its color distribution or color density with the damage to the wafer, and help develop and improve products by using the data.
14. Bonding (wire bonding) process
A tip is connected to electrodes in the lead frame with gold wires.
Measuring clamping pressure
PRESCALE is used to collect clamping pressure data to develop equipments.
15. Molding process
A tip is molded to be a package with a resinous encapsulant.
Checking molding pressure of a molding machine
PRESCALE is used to check pressure distribution and pressure range in molding equipments. Molding equipment manufacturers use this film to inspect their equipments’ quality before shipping them or submit this film to their client as a certification.
16. Marking process
The product name or manufacturer name is marked on the package.
17. Inspecting process
Tips inspected to be good products are shipped.
Semiconductor substrates
Rigid substrates
Flexible substrates
Transistors
Measuring pressure distribution during a process of laminating a green sheet in manufacturing rigid substrates
PRESCALE is used to indicate pressure distribution during a process of laminating a green sheet in manufacturing rigid substrates.
Measuring pressure distribution of vacuum laminating machines
PREACALE is used to measure pressure distribution of vacuum laminating machines. Vacuum laminating machine manufacturers use this film for inspecting their machines’ quality before shipping, inspecting machines working in their clients’ factories or submitting films as certifications.
Checking pressure distribution of PPI (Press Pack IEGT)
PRESCALE is used to check pressure distribution of PPI (Press Pack IEGT). This is one of quality inspections in PPI manufacturers.
Free sample
We send you the sample for free with instruction for use.