Fabrication of thin resin-bonded diamond wire and its application to ductile-mode wire sawing of mono-crystalline silicon

Fixed diamond wire has been the most common tool for slicing semiconductor ingots into wafers in fields of photovoltaics and integrated circuits. The diameter of diamond wire and thickness of wafers are decreasing dramatically to reduce material cost. Compared with electroplated diamond wire, resin-bonded diamond wire has a more uniform distribution of protrusion height, which leads to less crack damage, and therefore ensures further thinning of wafer thickness. However, due to the restriction of materials and resin-bonded diamond wire fabrication technology, the application of resin-bonded diamond wire is still limited. In this paper, thin resin-bonded diamond wire with core wire diameter of 60 mu m is developed using a self-developed wire-fabricating device, and its corresponding morphology and sawing performance are evaluated. The examined quality of sawn wafers indicates that the thin resin-bonded diamond wire meets the requirement of wire sawing. Besides, a 3D morphology model for the thin wire is established considering the uniform distribution of protrusion height of abrasives. Wire sawing parameters to realize ductile-mode wire sawing of mono-crystalline silicon are determined using the established 3D morphology model.