A grinding-based manufacturing method for silicon wafers: an experimental investigation

The majority of semiconductors are built on silicon wafers. Future semiconductors will require flatter wafers with a lower price. The lapping-based manufacturing method currently used to manufacture silicon wafers will not be able to meet the ever-increasing demand cost-effectively. This paper reports an experimental investigation into a grinding-based manufacturing method, which has potential to manufacture flat silicon wafers at a lower cost. Background information on semiconductors and silicon wafers is presented first. After a discussion on drawbacks of the lapping-based method, the grinding-based method is described. Next, experimental results with the grinding-based method are presented and discussed. The results from this investigation have demonstrated the potential of the grinding-based method and revealed several directions for future work.