JP2003179003A - Vacuum-suction type expander and method for fixing expanded film sheet - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vacuum-suction type expander for expanding a film sheet, simple in structure and easy to operate, and to provide a method for fixing the expanded sheet by use of the expander. <P>SOLUTION: A wafer ring 10 is arranged on a circular cylinder opening 1b for bringing a film sheet 10a into close contact with sealing members 1d for the formation of a closed space, and the closed space is evacuated through a suction port 1e. The film sheet 10a is expanded while being sucked into a bottom-provided cylinder 1a, and wafers 10b diced in advance and on the film sheet 10a are moved for separation into chips. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vacuum suction type expander and a method for fixing an expansion film sheet for separating a wafer which has been diced into chips, which are square pieces, in a semiconductor manufacturing process.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a semiconductor manufacturing process, a rod-shaped silicon single crystal is sliced to cut a thin disk-shaped wafer. The surface of this wafer is polished and mirror-finished, and then subjected to thin film formation, lithography, etching, impurity introduction, cleaning, heat treatment, etc.
A completed wafer in which a plurality of chips such as CMOS are allocated in a grid pattern is obtained.

In order to divide a plurality of chips arranged in a lattice pattern on a completed wafer into one chip, dicing is performed by cutting the chip into one chip by a dedicated cutter. An IC chip is manufactured by die-bonding, wire-bonding, and packaging these pieces of chips.

In the semiconductor manufacturing process described above, when a thin film formation, lithography, etching, impurity introduction, cleaning, heat treatment, etc. are performed on a wafer, it is easy to handle the wafer which cannot be directly touched. Therefore, the wafer in the middle of the manufacturing process is handled after being mounted on a jig called a wafer ring. An operator / manufacturing apparatus can handle a wafer without touching the wafer by gripping / holding the wafer ring.

The wafer ring will be described. 9A and 9B are configuration diagrams of the wafer ring. FIG. 9A is a front view, FIG. 9B is a sectional view taken along the line BB, and FIG. 9C is a rear view. As shown in FIGS. 9A and 9C, the wafer ring 10 is partially cut away (upper side in FIG. 9A).
It is an annular plate having a central hole, and a stretchable film sheet 10a is stretched over the central hole. The film sheet 10a is coated with an adhesive only on the side shown in FIG. 9 (a), and is adhered to the wafer ring 10 in a stretched state so as to have no wrinkles or the like. Further, the wafer 10b is arranged and fixed on the central portion of the film sheet 10a.

To realize such attachment, a dedicated mounting device (not shown) has been developed.
The wafer ring 10, the film sheet 10a, and the wafer 10b can be bonded while positioning them. Since such a wafer 10b is carried while being held by the wafer ring 10, the wafer 10b
The occurrence of a situation in which dust is attached to b and excessive force is applied is avoided.

Now, as the semiconductor manufacturing process progresses, the wafer 10b of the wafer ring 10 is diced into chips. Then, after the dicing is completed, the chip is to be removed. In this case, the side portion of one chip is picked and taken out while the boundary surface between one chip and another adjacent chip is not in contact. Therefore, by expanding the film sheet 10a, the film sheet 1
The method of moving the dicing wafer 10b above 0a is adopted.

The expansion of the film sheet will be briefly described. 10A and 10B are explanatory views for explaining the expansion of the film sheet. FIG. 10A shows a dicing-processed wafer on the film sheet before expansion, and FIG. 10B shows chips on the film sheet after expansion. There is. When a force in the arrow direction (radial direction) shown in FIG. 10A is applied to the film sheet to which the wafer 10b which has been diced as shown in FIG. 10A is attached, the wafer 10b
Starts the separation, and finally, as shown in FIG. 10 (b), the chips 10c are arranged in an orderly state while maintaining a state of being arranged (hereinafter, such an operation is simply referred to as a film sheet expansion operation).

As a conventional technique related to the expansion work of such a film sheet, for example, "A stretchable sheet on which a large number of semiconductor elements are mounted on a wafer ring is described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 29412 in 1988. An invention relating to a "setting method" is known. Specifically, the expansion ring is attached while expanding the elastic sheet by sandwiching it with a clamper, and the elastic sheet is cut with a cutter attached to the lifting device that rises from below and attached to the expansion ring. is there.

[0010]

However, in the above-mentioned prior art, when setting the stretchable sheet on the expansion ring, a complicated mechanism such as a clamper mechanism and a mounting mechanism is required, which reduces the manufacturing cost of the apparatus itself. It is difficult to do so, and eventually the manufacturing cost of semiconductors rises, causing an increase in cost. Therefore, there has been a demand for an inexpensive device having a simplified mechanical system while maintaining the conventional functions.

The present invention is intended to solve the above problems, and an object thereof is to provide a vacuum adsorption type expander having a simple mechanism and capable of expanding a film sheet by an easy operation, Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for fixing an expansion film sheet using this vacuum adsorption type expander.

[0012]

In order to solve the problems of the present invention, according to the vacuum adsorption type expander of the invention according to claim 1, the film sheet stretched over the circular opening of the wafer ring is stretched to form a film. A vacuum adsorption expander for separating a dicing wafer fixed on a sheet into a plurality of pieces of chips, and an expander main body formed to include a bottomed cylindrical portion having a substantially concave cross-section. , An intake port provided in the expander main body so as to communicate with the inside of the cylinder, and the wafer ring is placed on the cylindrical opening of the bottomed cylindrical portion to bring the film sheet into close contact with the cylindrical opening of the expander main body. To form a closed space, the gas in the closed space inside the bottomed cylinder is sucked from the inlet, and the film sheet is expanded while adsorbing inside the bottomed cylinder and fixed on this film sheet. And by moving the diced wafer having a function of separating the chips, it is characterized.

According to a second aspect of the vacuum suction expander of the present invention, in the vacuum suction expander of the first aspect, the cylindrical opening is provided with a seal member that is in close contact with the film sheet, and a wafer is provided. When the ring is installed on the cylindrical opening, the film sheet and the sealing member are in close contact with each other, and the inner film sheet has a function of being expanded by vacuum suction from the annular portion which is the close contact portion. .

According to a third aspect of the vacuum adsorption type expander of the present invention, in the vacuum adsorption type expander of the first or second aspect, there is provided a heater for heating the film sheet. It is characterized by

Further, according to the vacuum adsorption type expander of the invention of claim 4, in the vacuum adsorption type expander of claim 2 or 3, the seal member is O.
It is characterized by being a ring.

Further, according to the vacuum adsorption type expander of the invention of claim 5, in the vacuum adsorption type expander according to any one of claims 1 to 4, the inner peripheral wall of the bottomed cylindrical portion. And an inner circumferential groove provided in the inner circumferential groove,
And a pressing means that changes into a state of being housed in the inner peripheral groove or a state of protruding to the outside of the inner peripheral groove.

According to a sixth aspect of the vacuum suction type expander of the present invention, in the vacuum suction type expander of the fifth aspect, the pressing means is a tube.

Further, according to the expansion film sheet fixing method of the invention of claim 7, it is an expansion film sheet fixing method using the vacuum adsorption type expander according to any one of claims 1 to 4. Then, when the film sheet is attracted and expanded in the bottomed cylindrical portion, the expansion ring is lowered toward the bottom surface of the bottomed cylindrical portion, and the expansion ring is placed on the adhesive surface of the film sheet expanded by vacuum suction. Place, cut the film sheet on the upper side of the expansion ring, transfer the expanded film sheet to the expansion ring by winding and fixing the film sheet on the upper side of the expansion ring to shrink by cutting, and the expansion ring is taken out, It is characterized by

According to the expansion film sheet fixing method of the invention according to claim 8, there is provided an expansion film sheet fixing method using the vacuum suction expander according to claim 5 or 6, wherein the film sheet is The film sheet expanded by vacuum suction when the expansion ring is lowered toward the bottom surface of the bottomed cylindrical portion while the pressing means is accommodated in the inner peripheral groove when the expansion member is sucked into the bottomed cylindrical portion. An expansion ring is arranged on the adhesive surface of the expansion ring, and the film sheet is cut on the upper side of the expansion ring with the pressing means protruding to the outside of the inner circumferential groove and pressing the film sheet against the expansion ring, and the expansion ring tries to contract by cutting. The film sheet expanded by winding and fixing the upper film sheet is transferred to the expansion ring, and the pressing means is stored in the inner circumferential groove. Zhang ring is taken out, characterized in that.

[0020]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of a vacuum adsorption type expander of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a tube. The vacuum adsorption type expander of the present embodiment includes an expander body 1, a tube 2 and a heater 3 as shown in FIGS.

Next, individual constitutions of the vacuum adsorption type expander will be explained. More specifically, the expander body 1 has a bottomed cylindrical portion 1a, a cylindrical opening portion 1b, a cylindrical bottom portion 1c, a seal member 1d, and an intake port 1 as shown in FIG.
e, an intake groove 1f, an inner peripheral wall 1g, and inner peripheral grooves 1h and 1i.

The bottomed cylindrical portion 1a is a basin-shaped container having a rotator shape and a cross section of which is substantially concave. A cylindrical opening 1b is opened on the upper side of the bottomed cylindrical portion 1a, and a cylindrical bottom 1c is formed on the lower side.
An annular seal member 1 is formed in the cylindrical opening 1b.
d (for example, an O-ring formed of an elastic body such as rubber or a seal formed in an annular plate shape) is provided.

An intake port 1e is provided in the center of the cylindrical bottom part 1c, and an intake groove 1f is formed so as to be connected to the intake port 1e. If the intake groove 1f is not provided, if the intake opening 1e is closed by the film sheet 10a, further vacuum suction is not performed, but in reality, the existence of the intake groove 1f closes the intake opening 1e. The film sheet 10a is adsorbed on the entire surface of the cylindrical bottom portion 1c. The intake groove 1f in the present embodiment will be described assuming that a circle-shaped groove and a cross-shaped groove are formed as shown in FIG. In addition to this, for example, although not shown, radial grooves extending in multiple directions, or a combination of a plurality of concentric circular grooves and radial grooves may be formed. The shape of the intake groove 1f is appropriately selected in consideration of the actual state.

As shown in FIG. 1 (b), the inner peripheral wall 1g of the bottomed cylindrical portion 1a has inner peripheral grooves 1h and 1i at two upper and lower positions.
Is provided. The inner peripheral groove 1h on the upper side is provided in order to avoid interference with the inner peripheral wall 1g when a cutter for cutting the film sheet passes, which will be described later. The tube 2 is accommodated in the lower inner circumferential groove 1i.

The tube 2 is preferably a silicone tube made of, for example, silicone rubber. As shown in FIG. 2 (a), the tube 2 may be formed with an end treatment part 2a to close the tip of the tube, and the tube base is connected to a suction means such as a vacuum pump (not shown) to appropriately decompress / press. It is designed to be pressed. Other than this, for example, as shown in FIG. 2B, the T-shaped flow passage portion 2b may form the flow passage in the tube 2 in an annular shape.

As shown in FIG. 2 (c), when the inside of the tube 2 is decompressed (that is, air is exhausted from the inside of the tube), the tube 2 contracts and the inside of the inner peripheral groove 1i is compressed. When the inside of the tube 2 is pressurized (that is, air is injected into the tube 2), the tube 2 expands and is projected to the outside of the inner circumferential groove 1i.

The heater 3 is formed in the shape of an annular plate and is shown in FIG.
As shown in (b), it is fixed to the lower part of the expander body 1. By heating the entire expander body 1 and the air in the expander in this way, the film sheet 10a is heated and the stretchability of the film sheet 10a is improved. The heater 3 may be a heater that is attached to the outer peripheral wall of the bottomed cylindrical portion 1a, for example, although not shown, other than the lower portion of the expander body 1. The heater 3 also includes a light (not shown) for applying heat rays to the film sheet 10a. The present invention can be carried out if there is a heating action other than the above.

Next, a method of fixing an expansion film sheet using such a vacuum adsorption type expander will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 3 is an explanatory view for explaining the expansion of the film sheet, FIG. 4 is an explanatory view for the expansion ring, FIG. 5 is an explanatory view for explaining the arrangement of the expansion ring on the film sheet, and FIG.
Is an explanatory view for explaining fixing of the film sheet to the expansion ring with a tube, FIG. 7 is an explanatory view for explaining cutting of the film sheet, and FIG. 8 is an explanatory view for explaining removal of the expansion ring to which the film sheet is transferred. is there. It should be noted that FIGS. 3 and 5 to 8 are simplified drawings, which are different from the configuration of each part of the expansion expander shown in FIG.

First, the tube 2 is contracted as shown in FIG. 3 (a). Then, as shown in FIG. 3 (a), the cylindrical opening 1b of this vacuum adsorption type expander.
The wafer ring 10 is arranged on the top. When the wafer ring 10 is installed in the cylindrical opening 1b, the film sheet 10a and the sealing member 1d are in close contact with each other, and a space closed from the outside is formed.

On the film sheet 10a stretched over the wafer ring 10, a wafer 10b which has been subjected to dicing is fixed. However, although each chip piece of the wafer 10b is separated by cutting, it is still in a state in which the chip pieces are adjacently arranged (FIG. 10).
(State of (a)).

Then, when a vacuum pump (not shown) at a remote place starts intake, the exhaust from the intake port 1e causes
The space closed from the outside is decompressed, and the film sheet 10a descends in the direction of arrow A shown in FIG.
Then, the film sheet 10a descends while expanding in the directions of arrows B and C shown in FIG. 3B, and finally, as shown in FIG. 3B, the film sheet 10a has the inner peripheral wall 1g and the inner peripheral wall 1g in the bottomed cylindrical portion 1a. It is adsorbed on the cylindrical bottom 1c.

When the air is sucked up to the vacuum state as shown in FIG. 3 (b), no further vacuum state can be reached, but the film sheet 10a tries to return to the original state as soon as the suction is stopped. Therefore, the air is continuously exhausted from the intake groove 1f and the intake port 1e to maintain the vacuum state of the closed space. In this case, only the inner film sheet 10a is expanded by vacuum suction from the annular portion which is the contact portion between the film sheet 10a and the seal member 1d, and therefore the film sheet 10a is peeled off from the wafer ring 10. Is taken into consideration.
Since the seal member 1d and the film sheet 10a are firmly adhered to each other by the frictional force, they have an effect of maintaining airtightness and an effect of preventing deviation from the annular portion.

Now, when the vacuum state is maintained, the film sheet 1 in the cylindrical opening 1b shown in FIG.
Since the film sheet 10a that is in close contact with the inner peripheral wall 1g and the cylindrical bottom portion 1c shown in FIG. 3 (b) is expanded rather than 0a, the chips are expanded while maintaining an orderly arrangement (see FIG. 10 (b)). State).

In practice, depending on the film sheet 10a used, it may be difficult to expand in a room temperature environment.
Therefore, it is difficult to expand the film sheet 10a in a room temperature environment.
When using, the film heater 10a is heated by the heater 3.
When heated in a heated state, the stretchability is improved. Regarding the temperature, even if the temperature is too high, the chip is destroyed by heat, so it is necessary to set the temperature at least not to destroy the chip.

Subsequently, an operation of transferring the expanded film sheet having the chip 10c mounted thereon to the expansion ring 4 is performed. Expansion ring 4 as shown in FIGS.
Has an annular structure, but the shape is not limited to this. For example, the outer circumference may be rounded (so-called R is attached) as shown in FIG. 4 (c). It is selected appropriately.

As shown in FIG. 5, the expansion ring 4 is lowered into the bottomed cylindrical portion 1a in the direction of the arrow D and is arranged on the upper surface of the film sheet 10a. As described above, the upper surface of the film sheet 10a is coated with the adhesive for sticking the chip 10c, so that the film sheet 10a is fixed to the expansion ring 4 at the same time. In addition,
It is necessary to carefully descend so as not to accidentally contact the film sheet 10a on the inner peripheral wall 1g side.

Subsequently, air is put into the tube 2 to pressurize it. The tube 2 expands and presses the film sheet 10a against the expansion ring 4 as shown in FIG. In this way, the film sheet 10a is pressed against and fixed to the outer peripheral portion of the expansion ring 4. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 7, the film sheet 10a is cut while the fixed state of the film sheet 10a is maintained. As shown in FIG. 7, the cutter 5 attached to the cutter mechanism (not shown) rotates while moving to the inside of the inner circumferential groove 1h to cut the film sheet 10a.

The portion of the film sheet 10a from the portion pressed against the expansion ring 4 by the tube 2 to the cut portion falls to the upper portion of the expansion ring 4 and becomes a folded state as shown in FIG. When the film sheet 10a falls, the film sheet 10a is firmly fixed to the expansion ring 4 by its contracting force and an adhesive. Then, the inside of the tube 2 is decompressed (air is exhausted), and the expansion ring 4 is taken out after the tube 2 is accommodated in the inner circumferential groove 1i as shown in FIG. The expansion film sheet fixing method is as described above.

The embodiments of the present invention have been described above. The present invention relates to the expander body, (1) adopting a structure capable of integrally manufacturing the expander body,
(2) The expander body can be manufactured with a lathe, (3) Mechanically highly accurate parts are unnecessary, (4) The number of parts is extremely small, (4) Assembly, etc. Combined with the fact that it is not necessary, the manufacturing cost of the expander body is significantly reduced.

Furthermore, other O-rings, tubes,
Vacuum pumps and heaters can be procured at low cost by adopting existing and commercially available equipment, which also reduces manufacturing costs.

The expansion ratio, which is the ratio of the size of the film sheet spread, is determined by the height H of the expander body (see, for example, FIG. 3).
Adjustment can be made by changing (a), and it is possible to easily comply with expansion rates having different requirements in the manufacturing process. The height of the expander body is a matter that is appropriately determined in consideration of the expansion rate at the time of design, and it is possible to select a desired expansion rate.

In the vacuum suction type expander of the present embodiment described above, by adopting the vacuum suction, the vertically moving drive mechanism and the clamp mechanism for fixing the film sheet, which are used in the prior art, are unnecessary, and the film sheet is not used. The mechanism for fixing the to the outer periphery can be an extremely simple mechanism (for example, a seal member typified by an O-ring), which contributes to cost reduction.

Further, the expanded film sheet is folded back after being cut into a single expansion ring (in the past, one expansion ring and a rubber band or a fitting outer ring were used to sandwich and fix the film sheet from above and below). The shrinkage force and the adhesive force of the formed film sheet can be used to fix the film sheet, which can contribute to simplification of the work.

[0044]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide a vacuum suction type expander which has a simple mechanism and which expands a film sheet by an easy work, and an expansion film sheet fixing method using the vacuum suction type expander.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of a vacuum adsorption type expander of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a tube.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating expansion of a film sheet.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of an expansion ring.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory view illustrating the arrangement of the expansion ring on the film sheet.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram illustrating fixing of a film sheet to an expansion ring by a tube.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram illustrating cutting of a film sheet.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram for explaining how to take out the expansion ring to which the film sheet has been transferred.

FIG. 9 is a configuration diagram of a wafer ring.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram illustrating film sheet expansion.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Expander body 1a Bottomed cylindrical part 1b Cylindrical opening 1c Bottom of cylinder 1d seal member 1e Inlet port 1f intake groove 1g inner wall 1h inner peripheral groove 1i Inner groove 2 tubes 2a End treatment part 2b T-shaped flow path 3 heating heater 4 expansion ring 5 cutter 10 Wafer ring 10a film sheet 10b wafer 10c chip

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A vacuum adsorption expander for stretching a film sheet stretched over a circular opening of a wafer ring to separate a dicing wafer fixed on the film sheet into a plurality of chips. The expander body is formed so as to include a bottomed cylindrical portion having a substantially concave cross section, and an intake port is provided in the expander body so as to communicate with the inside of the cylinder. Placed on the opening, the film sheet is brought into close contact with the cylindrical opening of the expander body to form a closed space, and the gas in the closed space inside the bottomed cylinder is sucked in from the intake port to enter the bottomed cylinder. It has a function of expanding a film sheet while adsorbing, and moving a dicing wafer fixed on the film sheet to separate chips. Formula expander. 2. The vacuum adsorption type expander according to claim 1, further comprising a sealing member that is in close contact with the film sheet in the cylindrical opening, and the film sheet and the sealing member when the wafer ring is installed on the cylindrical opening. The vacuum adsorption type expander is characterized in that the film sheet on the inner side is expanded by vacuum adsorption from the annular portion which is a close contact portion with. 3. The vacuum adsorption expander according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: a heater for heating the film sheet. 4. The vacuum adsorption expander according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the seal member is an O-ring. 5. The vacuum adsorption expander according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein an inner peripheral groove provided on an inner peripheral wall of the bottomed cylindrical portion and an inner peripheral groove, A vacuum suction expander, comprising: a pressing unit that changes into a state of being housed in the inner circumferential groove or a state of protruding to the outside of the inner circumferential groove. 6. The vacuum adsorption type expander according to claim 5, wherein the pressing means is a tube. 7. A method for fixing an expansion film sheet using the vacuum adsorption type expander according to claim 1, wherein the film sheet is adsorbed in a bottomed cylindrical portion and expanded. At this time, the expansion ring is lowered toward the bottom surface of the bottomed cylindrical portion, the expansion ring is placed on the adhesive surface of the film sheet expanded by vacuum suction, and the film sheet is cut on the upper side of the expansion ring. A method for fixing an expansion film sheet, characterized in that the film sheet on the upper side of the expansion ring to be contracted is wound and fixed, and the expanded film sheet is transferred to the expansion ring and the expansion ring is taken out. 8. A method for fixing an expanded film sheet using the vacuum adsorption type expander according to claim 5 or 6, wherein the film sheet is adsorbed in the bottomed cylindrical portion and expanded, the pressing means. The expansion ring is lowered toward the bottom surface of the bottomed cylindrical portion while being housed in the inner peripheral groove, and the expansion ring is arranged on the adhesive surface of the film sheet expanded by vacuum suction, and the pressing means is arranged on the inner periphery. Cut the film sheet on the upper side of the expansion ring while projecting out of the groove and pressing the film sheet against the expansion ring, and wrap the film sheet on the upper side of the expansion ring that is going to contract by cutting and fix the expanded film sheet. An expansion film sheet characterized by being transferred to an expansion ring and being taken out with the pressing means housed in the inner peripheral groove. Fixing method.