A conventional shot peening may be applied to process or cut a substrate by using steel balls, ceramic balls or carborundum particles. However, such a conventional peening method has the following drawbacks:
The present inventor has found the drawbacks of the conventional peening process and invented the present cutting method with improved production efficiency and decreased production cost.
The object of the present invention is to provide a cutting method by applying a particle beam of metallic glass onto a substrate to cut or partially cut the substrate with high production efficiency, low production cost and better environmental protection.
As shown in
The particle feeder 1 and the substrate 5 are subjected to a negative pressure environment E, such as being equipped within an enclosed chamber which is evacuated to form a negative-pressure environment.
The pressure of the driving gas may be set to a range of 0.1 bar to 5 bars, but not limited in the present invention.
The particle size of the metallic glass may be 1˜100 microns for a precise cutting operation.
The metallic glass may be selected from: iron-based metallic glass, or nickel-based, cobalt-based metallic glass, or metallic glass with high-entropy alloy.
The substrate 5 may be a wafer having a plurality of chips 52 arranged as array and disposed on the substrate 5. After being impacted by the particle beam 4 of metallic glass, a plurality of cutting channels 51 will be formed on the substrate 5 so that each chip 52 is surrounded and defined by a plurality of cutting channels 51 as shown in
The above-mentioned impacting of particles of metallic glass onto the substrate 5 may be defined as a cutting operation. Such a cutting is not performed to completely cut the substrate 5, namely, a thin bottom layer Sla is still maintained (
Otherwise, if the chips 52 have been completely cut during the impacting (cutting) operation, the separated chips 52 will be difficultly handled for further processing such as packaging of the chips.
In the present invention, the particle beam of the metallic glass is forcibly driven by the gas under pressure of 0.1˜5 bars to bombard or impact the substrate to plastically depress the substrate to form a plurality of cutting channels 51, adapted to define a plurality of chips 52 to allow each chip 52 to be surrounded by plural cutting channels 51, thereby reliably smoothly helping the subsequent processing of the chips.
Thanks to the good properties of the metallic glass particle 10 as used in this invention, namely, the properties of small particle size, high hardness, high density, and high true roundness. The impacting particle of metallic glass with its high dynamic bombardment energy will focusingly depress the substrate to form the plurality of cutting channels 51, which are beneficial for further cutting and separating of the chips 52. The metallic glass particles have a high breaking strength and will not be broken easily so that the metallic glass particles will be recycled and reused for saving cost and for better environmental protection.
The thickness of the thin bottom layer 51a may range from 0.02 mm to 0.1 mm, but not limited in this invention.
The depth of the cutting channel 51 may be set or adjusted by varying the parameters, including: impacting velocity, impacting distance, impacting angles, impacting time and the production capacity of metallic glass particles. By the way, each cutting channel 51 may be formed to have a precise depth, only remaining a thin bottom layer 51a adapted for easily peeling and separation of each chip 52 from the substrate 5. The thin bottom layer 51a may link neighboring chips 52, without being completely broken or separated, so as to help a smooth reliable transferring of the chips 52 for their further processing. When later processed, each thin bottom layer 51a may be peeled and broken in order to separate the chips 52.
As shown in
As shown in
Other particle feeders 1 may be further modified to boost the particle beams to efficiently cut the channels 51 in the substrate 5.
The present invention is superior to the conventional shot peening processes with the following advantages:
The present invention may be further modified without departing from the spirit and scope of this invention.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20230054463 A1 | Feb 2023 | US |