Designing a mechanism to cleave silicon wafers

Abstract

A device was designed and manufactured to precisely cleave silicon wafers. Two vacuum chucks were designed to support a 150 mm diameter silicon wafer and cleave it by providing a pure moment at a pre-etched v-notch while a vacuum was created on either side of the cut. The design of the vacuum chucks would also accommodate the smaller pieces of the wafer and would allow for the cleaving process to yield 19 mm x 34 mm die. The overall system consisted of three main components: the stationary vacuum chuck, and the pivoting vacuum chuck, and the base plate, which supported the two vacuum chucks. Hinges connected the two vacuum chucks and allowed one to cleave a silicon wafer resting atop the two chucks simply by applying a small load on the handle of the pivoting chuck. The system was manufactured, assembled, and tested to prove its functionality.