Top vendor qualifies ALSI's multi-beam laser dicing system
One of the largest IC and discrete device manufacturers (ranked by total revenue) has qualified and purchased Dutch firm ALSI's multi-beam laser dicing system.
The firm will use the tool for its thin and ultra-thin discrete devices which are now ready for mass production.
During an extensive test and qualification period at the customer site, the customer and ALSI teams worked very closely together.
They aimed to develop an optimised process and payed special attention to fast dicing speed, with narrow dicing width, on low cost and standard dicing tape.
This application has a small die size of less than 200 µm, no repetitive patterns on the wafers and relatively complex thick wafer bottom side metallurgies with low melting points.
Process recipes were developed with dicing speeds much faster than traditional blade dicing recipes, producing dicing streets down to 40 μm while achieving very high yield (max 100 ppm yield loss).
Jeroen van Borkulo, application manager at ALSI and project leader of this customer's project, comments, "The development and close cooperation with the customer for this application to meet such high expectations with tight specifications and high productivity targets for low cost of ownership, was a great experience and set new standards for this entire market segment. Our ICA 1204 is equipped with unique multi-beam (beam splitting) technology and a customised high power IR-laser which allowed us to achieve the goals".
The system will be used for several product types and with different wafer bottom surface metallurgies.
Rene Hendriks, director of commerce, says that the tests on this same system for their new ultra-thin wafers with relatively thick wafer backside metal also showed good results. This technology will not only be an enabler for cost reductions on existing applications but also allow for new wafer or die technologies.
ALSI says its multi-beam laser dicing technology will place the customer in a very strong cost competitive position and prepare the firm to introduce new technologies with more advanced product specifications, while allowing a quicker time to market.
