The laser is one of the four great inventions of the twentieth century. In addition to atomic energy, computers, and semiconductors, human beings found that the global laser market in 2019 reached US$15.13 billion. According to the distribution of the wavelength bands, the longer the laser wavelength, the greater the technical difficulty, while the demand in the civilian and military fields is huge, and the market space is huge.


The development of production equipment and the chip industry are inseparable. With the expansion of the domestic semiconductor market, the demand for chips is also growing rapidly. In recent years, with the continuous expansion of the market share of semiconductor equipment in mainland China, the continuous expansion of production capacity, and the pressure at home and abroad, the market share of semiconductor equipment in mainland China and the scale of the global semiconductor equipment market have increased year by year. In 2020, the market size of semiconductor equipment in mainland China is 26.33%, an increase of 14.6% from 11.73% in 2014.


Laser cutting semiconductors


What is the role of laser cutting machines in chip manufacturing?


The laser is one of the four great inventions of the 20th century and plays an important role in wafer processing. The chip developed by the invention takes laser cutting as the core raw material, fully meets the requirements of wafer cutting, and can effectively avoid the problem of grinding wheel cutting.


1. Non-contact processing: Laser processing only requires the laser beam to contact the workpiece, and the cutting part will not be affected by the cutting force and will not damage the surface of the material to be processed.


2. High machining accuracy and small thermal influence: the instantaneous power of pulsed laser is high, the energy density is high, the average power is low, the processing can be completed in an instant, the heat-affected range is small, the precision requirement is high, and the heating surface is small.


3. High processing efficiency and good economic benefits: The processing efficiency of laser is usually several times that of mechanical processing, and there is no consumable material and no pollution. Semiconductor wafer laser stealth cutting technology is a brand new laser cutting technology, which has the advantages of fast cutting speed, no dust, no dust generated during cutting, no loss to the substrate, small cutting path, and complete drying.


Laser cutting circuit boards


Its basic principle is to focus the short-pulse laser beam on the surface of the material, form a calcium layer in the middle of the material, and then separate the chips by external pressure.


In the semiconductor industry, laser cutting equipment is widely used. In recent years, laser equipment has developed rapidly in China. In recent years, domestic chip applications have shown diversified development. The growing demand for chips in industries such as smart phones, Internet of Things, automotive electronics, 5G, and artificial intelligence has put forward higher requirements for the quality and reliability of chips. In the future, the domestic semiconductor market will bring huge development opportunities to domestic equipment.