Wafer dicing in the context of "Substrate (semiconductor)"

In electronics, a wafer (also called a slice or substrate) is a thin slice of semiconductor, such as a crystalline silicon (c-Si, silicium), used for the fabrication of integrated circuits and, in photovoltaics, to manufacture solar cells.

The wafer serves as the substrate for microelectronic devices built in and upon the wafer. It undergoes many microfabrication processes, such as doping, ion implantation, etching, thin-film deposition of various materials, and photolithographic patterning. Finally, the individual microcircuits are separated by wafer dicing and packaged as an integrated circuit.

In the context of integrated circuits, a die is a small block of semiconducting material on which a given functional circuit is fabricated. Typically, integrated circuits are produced in large batches on a single wafer of electronic-grade silicon (EGS) or other semiconductor (such as GaAs) through processes such as photolithography. The wafer is cut (diced) into many pieces, each containing one copy of the circuit. Each of these pieces is called a die.

There are three commonly used plural forms: dice, dies, and die. To simplify handling and integration onto a printed circuit board, most dies are packaged in various forms.

Die preparation is a step of semiconductor device fabrication during which a wafer is prepared for IC packaging and IC testing. The process of die preparation typically consists of two steps: wafer mounting and wafer dicing.

A dicing saw is a kind of saw which employs a high-speed spindle fitted with an extremely thin diamond blade or diamond wire to dice, cut, or groove semiconductor wafers, and glass, ceramic, crystal, and many other types of material.

The thickness of the cutting blades used varies with the material being cut, and is of about 20 μm to 35 μm when cutting silicon wafers. Japanese companies, such as DISCO Corporation and Accretech (Tokyo Seimitsu), account for about 90% of dicing saw sales. In the past, cutting 1/2 to 2/3 of wafer thickness was the mainstream; with large diameter wafers on dicing tape, full cut cutting is becoming mainstream.

Dicing tape is a backing tape used during wafer dicing or some other microelectronic substrate separation, the cutting apart of pieces of semiconductor or other material following wafer or module microfabrication. The tape holds the pieces of the substrate, in case of a wafer called as die, together during the cutting process, mounting them to a thin metal frame. The dies/substrate pieces are removed from the dicing tape later on in the electronics manufacturing process.