[Product Features]

• This new product can keep a wafer held on Chuck table in all the processes from the rough grinding through the finish grinding till the polishing with no need for wafer detachment, realizing a very thin wafer less than 30 micrometer with the damage layer removed. The other features include the adoption of an unprecedented both surface washing facility to ensure Dry-in-Dry-out, capabilities for FOUP.SMIF.GEM/SECS-protocol, and perfect automation with intelligence. (Patents pending)
• In addition, the grinding and polishing stations are completely separated with chamber type partition, and the slurry used in the polishing is fed from a dedicated tank through the plumbing to be recycled for full recollection at no environmental issues.

The development background

Since a single IC card can accommodate a variety of usages, the market may expand widely for public telephones, train tickets, admission controls, or package tags, etc. On the other hand, the semiconductor chip to be embedded in the card must be extremely thin, far over the limit of the conventional mechanical processing, and thoroughly free from the mechanical damage caused in the grinding as well.

On the other hand, the semiconductor chip to be embedded in the card must be extremely thin, far over the limit of the conventional mechanical processing, and thoroughly free from the mechanical damage caused in the grinding as well.

So far, the etching with nitrate fluoride liquid has been applied to remove the damage layer and to achieve the target thickness. However, this process causes head-aches to the process engineers with two main problems not yet overcome. First, wafers are frequently broken in the transfer from the grinding station to the etching station, resulting in a low yield. Second is the etching agent; an acid so strong as to generate smoke from the silicon for a good through-put and which needs extreme care to prevent any environmental hazard.

The newly developed Polish Grinder, PG200, has cleared these two problems and realized thinning to less than 30 micrometer and the damage layer removal.