Cleaving Electronic Structures Fabricated at 45 Degrees on Silicon

LatticeGear has developed a tool to cleave silicon (100) samples counter to the two orthogonal cleaving planes. This is commonly required in the semiconductor industry for manufacturing memory devices. The semiconductors have to be created at 45 degrees to the natural cleaving planes. When working counter to the natural cleaving plane, a scribe has to be made across the length of the desired cut.

100 semiconductor wafer showing the natural cleaving directions in black. The red represents structures fabricated at 45 degrees to the two orthogonal cleaving directions.

FlipScribe backside scriber.

FlipScribe from LatticeGear

The FlipScribe developed by LatticeGear outperforms a manual scribe. Since it scribes from the backside, the frontside is left untouched. The height and tilt of the diamond scribe can be adjusted as required. The procedure works as follows:

1. Determine the target location (see black dot, for example)
2. Improve targeting by marking the desired cleaving line
3. Scribe the sample using the FlipScribe backside scriber and cleave.

This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by LatticeGear.

For more information on this source, please visit LatticeGear.