JP2016021513A - Apparatus and method for expanding semiconductor wafer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an apparatus and a method for expanding a semiconductor wafer, capable of improving productivity of a semiconductor device as compared with conventional apparatuses and methods.SOLUTION: A semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101 for expanding a dicing tape 12 to which a semiconductor wafer is stuck includes: a contact member 21a for moving a ring-like frame to which the dicing tape is stuck; a movement mechanism 22 for moving the contact member between a no-load position 40 and a final expanding position 42; and a control device 30 which is a device for performing operation control of the movement mechanism to perform control for repeating tensile force application and tensile force release to/from the dicing tape during movement of the contact member from the no-load position up to the final expanding position and gradually increasing tensile force to the dicing tape in each tensile force application operation.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus and method for removing chips separated from a semiconductor wafer by dicing from a dicing tape.

  The semiconductor device wafer process is a process in which a plurality of rectangular semiconductor devices are arranged in a lattice pattern on a silicon wafer having a circular shape typified by φ5, φ6, and φ8 inches and a thickness of 1 mm or less. The wafer that has undergone this manufacturing process is bonded to a dicing tape once and cut (diced) with a blade or a laser in order to divide it into semiconductor devices (chips). The diced chips are removed from the dicing tape one by one after the adhesive material of the dicing tape is cured by UV irradiation or the like to reduce the adhesive force. This process is called a pickup process.

The chip pick-up method is generally a method of vacuum-adsorbing the dicing tape on the back of the chip with a flat suction pod, and lifting the chip by lifting the needle arranged according to the chip size from the suction pod to remove it and remove it. There is.
When the chip is peeled from the dicing tape by such a method, the dicing tape on the outer periphery of the wafer is pushed into a ring called an expanding ring, and tension is applied to the entire dicing tape. The tension applied to the dicing tape by such an expand increases the distance between the chips, prevents the collision between the chips during pick-up, and further improves the pick-up property by initial peeling of the micro area on the outer periphery of the chip. Have. Therefore, the expand is indispensable when removing the chip from the dicing tape. Various apparatuses and methods have been proposed for expanding such a dicing tape.

  For example, in Patent Document 1, a semiconductor wafer formed by arranging a plurality of semiconductor pellets in a lattice shape is attached to a stretchable sheet, and the semiconductor wafer is subdivided into semiconductor pellets, and the periphery of the sheet And a step of stretching the sheet by alternately applying tensile force in two directions perpendicular to the pellet arrangement in the semiconductor wafer while sandwiching the portion.

  Further, for example, Patent Document 2 discloses a chip dividing / separating device that divides a substrate attached and supported on a film into chips. The chip dividing / separating device includes a frame supporting means for supporting the outer periphery of the film on the frame, and a tension applied to the film corresponding to the X direction and the Y direction of the chip to be divided inside the frame supporting means. And a film surface support mechanism that is independently controlled. And this patent document 2 is disclosing that a flame | frame support means expand | extends a film by being lowered | lowered relatively with respect to a film surface support mechanism, and divides and separates a chip | tip.

JP-A-60-249346 JP 2012-204747 A

  In recent years, semiconductor devices have been made thinner, and there is a tendency for defects due to chip cracking when chips are picked up from a dicing tape to increase. Here, the initial peeling of the outer peripheral portion of the chip by expanding has the effect of relaxing the stress acting on the chip during pick-up and reducing chip cracking. On the other hand, when a wafer is diced for singulation into chips, when a full cut method for completely separating the chips is used, a tens of μm cut is made in a dicing tape having a thickness of several hundreds of μm. Therefore, an excessive increase in the amount of expand causes breakage due to tearing of the dicing tape. If the dicing tape is torn, the subsequent processing cannot be continued and the productivity of the semiconductor device is deteriorated.

  As described above, in the thinned semiconductor device, it is necessary to increase the amount of expansion to promote reliable micro initial peeling of the outer periphery of the chip while reliably preventing the dicing tape from being broken.

  The present invention has been made to solve such problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus and method capable of improving the productivity of semiconductor devices as compared with the conventional one.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is configured as follows.
That is, the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus according to one aspect of the present invention includes a dicing tape to which a semiconductor wafer is attached and diced together with the semiconductor wafer, and a wafer with a frame having a ring-shaped frame fixed to the outer peripheral edge of the dicing tape. A semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus that is mounted and extends the dicing tape to divide the semiconductor wafer into chips, the back surface of the dicing tape opposite to the semiconductor wafer attaching surface being the inner circumference of the ring-shaped frame. In a state where the circular expanding ring supported between the outer periphery of the semiconductor wafer, a contact member that contacts and moves the ring-shaped frame, and the dicing tape is supported by the expanding ring, the dicing tape is unloaded. In state A moving mechanism for moving the contact member in the thickness direction of the dicing tape between a no-load position and a final expanded position where the stretching of the dicing tape is finally finished, and a control device for controlling the operation of the moving mechanism In the process of moving the contact member from the no-load position to the final expanded position, the application of the tensile force to the dicing tape and the release of the tensile force are repeated, and each tensile force applying operation repeats the previous tensile force. And a control device that performs control to increase the tensile force applied to the dicing tape as compared with the application operation.

  According to the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus in one aspect of the present invention, the controller for controlling the dicing tape stretching operation is provided, so that when the dicing tape is stretched, the tensile force applying operation and the tensile force releasing operation are repeated. be able to. As a result, since the tension of the dicing tape is once weakened in the tensile force releasing operation, the tension in the dicing tape surface is made uniform, and the tearing of the dicing sheet due to the dicing cut can be prevented. Therefore, the productivity of the semiconductor device can be improved as compared with the conventional case.

It is sectional drawing which shows schematic structure of the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus in embodiment of this invention, and shows the state by which the dicing tape was finally extended. It is a top view of the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus shown in FIG. It is sectional drawing of the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus shown in FIG. 1, and shows the no-load state of a dicing tape. It is sectional drawing which shows the detail at the time of no load of the wafer with a flame | frame with which the semiconductor wafer expander is mounted | worn. It is sectional drawing which shows the detail at the time of the expansion of the wafer with a flame | frame mounted | worn with a semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus. It is a graph which shows the profile of the position of the contact member by Embodiment 1 of this invention performed with the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus shown in FIG. It is a graph which shows the profile of the position of the contact member by Embodiment 2 of this invention performed with the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus shown in FIG.

  A semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention and an expanding method executed by the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus will be described below with reference to the drawings. In each figure, the same or similar components are denoted by the same reference numerals. In addition, in order to avoid the following description from becoming unnecessarily redundant and to facilitate understanding by those skilled in the art, a detailed description of already well-known matters and a duplicate description of substantially the same configuration may be omitted. . Further, the contents of the following description and the accompanying drawings are not intended to limit the subject matter described in the claims.

Embodiment 1 FIG.
1 to 3 show a schematic configuration of a semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101 according to the first embodiment. A wafer 10 with a frame is mounted on the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101. The wafer 10 with a frame is a member in which the dicing tape 12 is affixed to a frame 13 which is an annular disk at the outer periphery of the dicing tape 12 without being bent. Here, the dicing tape 12 is a resin-made sheet material that has a semiconductor wafer 11 attached so as to be positioned on the inner peripheral portion of the frame 13 and is diced together with the semiconductor wafer 11. The semiconductor wafer 11 has chips 11a that are separated into individual pieces by dicing and are aligned in the vertical and horizontal directions. Therefore, the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101 is an apparatus that stretches the dicing tape 12 of the mounted wafer 10 with a frame, that is, applies a tensile force and divides the semiconductor wafer 11 into chips.
1 shows a final expanded state in which the semiconductor wafer 11 and the dicing tape 12 are finally stretched by the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101. FIG. 3 shows the frame-equipped wafer 10 in the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101. The non-load state which is a state before extending | stretching when mounted | worn is shown in figure.

  Such a semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101 includes an expanding ring 20, a contact member 21 a, a moving mechanism 22, and a control device 30 as its basic configuration, and is related to the moving mechanism 22 in the first embodiment. The frame holding mechanism 21 is further provided.

The expand ring 20 is a circular ring-shaped member disposed on the back surface 12b side of the dicing tape 12 opposite to the bonding surface 12a of the semiconductor wafer 11, and dicing for applying and releasing a tensile force as will be described later. It is fixed and fixed to the tape 12. Such an expand ring 20 supports the back surface 12 b in a region between the inner periphery of the ring-shaped frame 13 in the frame-equipped wafer 10 and the outer periphery of the semiconductor wafer 11 on the dicing tape 12.
More specifically, the expand ring 20 has a ring roller 20a and a ring support base 20b in the present embodiment. The ring support 20 b is a cylindrical member having a diameter smaller than the inner periphery of the ring frame 13 and larger than the outer periphery of the semiconductor wafer 11 on the dicing tape 12. A ring roller 20a is rotatably provided at one end of the ring support 20b, and the ring roller 20a contacts the back surface 12b of the dicing tape 12 in the above region. The ring roller 20a is a cylindrical member that can rotate in the radial direction of the wafer 10 with the frame, and when the dicing tape 12 is stretched, the dicing tape 12 is not evenly tensioned and is evenly distributed radially. It acts to add tension.
Moreover, it is preferable that the inner periphery of the ring-shaped frame 13, the outer periphery of the semiconductor wafer 11, and the expanding ring 20 are in a positional relationship as close as possible in the diameter direction of the wafer with frame 10.

  The frame holding mechanism 21 is a mechanism that holds the ring-shaped frame 13 in the frame-equipped wafer 10, and in this embodiment, includes a contact member 21a, a frame guide 21b, and a ball screw connecting member 21c. The contact member 21a is a disk-like member having substantially the same size as the ring-shaped frame 13, and is disposed above the ring-shaped frame 13 in the frame-equipped wafer 10 mounted on the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101. The frame 13 can be contacted. The frame guide 21b is a member that is positioned above the contact member 21a and covers the frame contact member 21a. The ball screw connecting member 21c is a member that connects the contact member 21a and the moving mechanism 22, is engaged with a ball screw 22a described later, and transmits the power of the moving mechanism 22 to the contact member 21a. In the first embodiment, the ball screw connecting member 21c and the contact member 21a are integrally formed.

  The frame holding mechanism 21 configured as described above is configured so that the contact member 21a that moves together with the ball screw coupling member 21c that is moved by the moving mechanism 22 described in detail below comes into contact with the ring-shaped frame 13, thereby The ring-shaped frame 13 can be pushed into the ring roller 20a, that is, moved downward. As a result, the dicing tape 12 of the frame-equipped wafer 10 is stretched and a tensile force is applied. Thus, the height difference between the ring-shaped frame 13 and the ring roller 20a gives tension to the entire dicing tape 12.

In the state where the dicing tape 12 in the frame-equipped wafer 10 is supported by the expanding ring 20, the moving mechanism 22 extends the unloaded position 40 where no load is applied to the dicing tape 12 in the frame-equipped wafer 10 and the dicing tape 12. This is a mechanism for moving the contact member 21 a of the frame holding mechanism 21 in the thickness direction 12 c of the dicing tape 12 between the completed final expanded position 42.
In this embodiment, the moving mechanism 22 includes a ball screw 22a, a ball screw guide 22b, a motor coupling 22c, and a motor 22d.

The ball screw 22a is oriented by the ball screw guide 22b so as to follow the direction in which the ring-shaped frame 13 can be pushed into the expanding ring 20, that is, along the thickness direction 12c of the dicing tape 12. The ball screw 22a is engaged with a ball screw connecting member 21c of the frame holding mechanism 21, and a motor 22d is connected via a motor coupling 22c. The motor coupling 22c enables connection and disconnection between the motor 22d and the ball screw 22a. A power source 23 is connected to the motor 22d.
Therefore, when the ball screw 22a is rotationally driven by the motor 22d, the ball screw coupling member 21c is movable in the axial direction of the ball screw 22a, that is, along the thickness direction 12c of the dicing tape 12. As described above, since the ball screw connecting member 21c is connected to the contact member 21a and integrally formed, the ball screw 22a is rotationally driven and the ball screw connecting member 21c moves in the thickness direction 12c of the dicing tape 12. As a result, the dicing tape 12 can be stretched.

  The control device 30 is a device that is electrically connected to the motor 22 d of the moving mechanism 22 and controls the operation of the moving mechanism 22. That is, the control device 30 sends a control signal to the motor 22d and controls the relative position between the expanding ring 20 and the contact member 21a via the moving mechanism 22. More specifically, the control device 30 repeatedly applies the tensile force to the dicing tape 12 and releases the tensile force while moving the contact member 21a from the unloaded position 40 to the final expanded position 42. In the tensile force application operation, control is performed to increase the tension in the dicing tape 12 compared to the previous tensile force application operation. This control operation will be described in more detail in the following operation description.

The operation of the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101 configured as described above will be described.
As shown in FIG. 3, the wafer with frame 10 is mounted on the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101 with its back surface 12 b supported by the ring rollers 20 a of the expanding ring 20. In this mounted state, the state where the dicing tape 12 of the frame-equipped wafer 10 is not stretched is defined as the initial state, and the position of the ring-shaped frame 13 of the frame-equipped wafer 10 is defined as the initial position 40-1.

  Next, when the motor 22d of the moving mechanism 22 is operated by the control device 30 and the ball screw 22a rotates, the contact member 21a of the frame holding mechanism 21 moves in the thickness direction 12c. Thereby, the ring-shaped frame 13 of the frame-equipped wafer 10 is moved from the initial position 40-1 to the final expanded position 42 shown in FIG. 1 according to operation control of the control device 30 described in detail below. At this time, since the back surface 12b of the wafer 10 with the frame is supported by the ring support 20b of the expanding ring 20 as already described, the dicing tape 12 in the wafer 10 with the frame moves the ring-shaped frame 13. As a result, the semiconductor wafer 11 is stretched, that is, given a tensile force, and at the same time, the semiconductor wafer 11 is separated into individual chips 11a and separated into individual pieces.

  Operation control of the control device 30 with respect to the moving mechanism 22 will be described below with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. As already described, the ball screw connecting member 21c engaged with the ball screw 22a in the moving mechanism 22 is configured integrally with the contact member 21a of the frame holding mechanism 21. Further, the contact member 21 a comes into contact with the ring-shaped frame 13 in the frame-equipped wafer 10 and moves integrally with the ring-shaped frame 13. Therefore, the operation control of the control device 30 with respect to the moving mechanism 22 is synonymous with the position control of the contact member 21a and hence the position control of the ring-shaped frame 13. Therefore, below, it demonstrates in the aspect in which the control apparatus 30 performs position control of the contact member 21a.

FIG. 5 is a view showing a profile regarding the position between the no-load position 40 and the final expanded position 42 of the contact member 21a. When the frame-equipped wafer 10 is mounted on the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101, the control apparatus 30 places the contact member 21a at the no-load position 40 where the contact member 21a does not contact the ring-shaped frame 13 and does not apply a load to the dicing tape 12. Arrange.
Next, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21a from the sticking surface 12a to the back surface 12b of the frame-equipped wafer 10, and pushes the ring-shaped frame 13 down to the expanded position 41a of the first step.
After stopping at the expanded position 41a for a specified time, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21a to return to the no-load position 40 again.
After stopping for a specified time at the no-load position 40, the control device 30 again moves the contact member 21a from the pasting surface 12a to the back surface 12b, and is positioned below the expanded position 41a of the first step. Move to the expanding position 41b of the step. Therefore, a greater tension is applied to the dicing tape 12 at the expanded position 41b than at the expanded position 41a.

After stopping for the specified time at the expanded position 41b, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21a again to return to the no-load position 40.
After stopping for a specified time at the no-load position 40, the control device 30 again moves the contact member 21a from the pasting surface 12a to the direction of the back surface 12b, and is positioned lower than the expanded position 41b of the second step and larger. The tension is moved to the expanded position 41c of the third step at which the dicing tape 12 acts, and after stopping for a specified time, the contact member 21a is moved again to return to the no-load position 40.
Then, after stopping for a specified time at the no-load position 40, the control device 30 finally moves the contact member 21a from the pasting surface 12a to the direction of the back surface 12b, and is positioned below the expanded position 41c of the third step. The large tension is moved to the final expanding position 42 of the fourth step where the dicing tape 12 is applied. At the stage where the contact member 21a reaches the final expanded position 42, the control device 30 completes a series of expanding operations.

  As specific positions such as the first step expand position 41a, in the first embodiment, for example, when the no-load position 40 is set to the reference position 0, the first step expand position 41a and the second step expand position 41b. The expanded position 41c and the final expanded position 42 in the third step can be set to 2 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, and 8 mm, respectively.

  When the contact member 21a is returned to the no-load position 40 after each of the first to third steps described above, the frame-equipped wafer 10 is not necessarily positioned at the initial position 40-1 depending on the degree of expansion / contraction of the dicing tape 12. .

With reference to FIG. 4 (FIGS. 4A and 4B), the effect when the above-described expanding operation is performed will be described.
FIG. 4A shows a cross section of the frame-equipped wafer 10 when no load is applied, and FIG. 4B shows a cross section of the frame-equipped wafer 10 when expanded. The semiconductor wafer 11 affixed to the dicing tape 12 is divided into each chip 11a by cutting by full cut, and the dicing tape 12 also has a dicing cut 12c between the chips 11a. The cutting amount of the dicing cut 12c is about several tens of μm.
Here, when the dicing tape 12 is expanded to a certain value or more, an outer peripheral minute peeling region 12d is formed on the outer peripheral portion of the chip 11a. In order to suppress the occurrence of chip cracks when picking up the chips 11a from the dicing tape 12, it is necessary to reliably form the outer peripheral minute peeling region 12d. For this reason, it is desired to increase the tension due to the expansion as much as possible, but since the thickness of the dicing tape 12 is small, there is a problem that the stress is concentrated on the dicing cut 12c and the dicing tape 12 is torn and damaged during the expansion.

  A conventional expanding operation using an expanding ring is a method of expanding a wafer with a frame from a no-load state to a final expanding position at a stretch. In this case, the tension of the dicing tape may locally increase due to non-uniform initial tension when the dicing tape is attached to the ring-shaped frame, misalignment between the center of the semiconductor wafer and the center of the expanding ring, and the like. It was considered and was accompanied by the risk of breakage due to tearing of the dicing tape.

  On the other hand, in the first embodiment, instead of expanding from the no-load state to the final expanded position at once, as described above, the application and release of the tension to the dicing tape 12 are repeated several times and gradually. Then, the dicing tape 12 is stretched. As a result, even if the initial tension when the dicing tape is attached to the ring-shaped frame is not uniform, the misalignment between the center of the semiconductor wafer and the center of the expanding ring, etc. exists, the dicing tape 12 can be The dicing tape 12 can be stretched more evenly without being damaged. Therefore, the productivity of the semiconductor device can be improved as compared with the conventional case.

  In the first embodiment, the dicing tape 12 is extended to the final expanded position 42 by four steps as described above, but the number of steps is not limited to this. The tensile force application operation and the tensile force release operation may be executed in at least two sets as one set.

  Moreover, although the expanded positions 41a, 41b, 41c, and 42 are set at equal intervals in the first embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this and may be different.

  In the first embodiment, the time required to move the ring-shaped frame 13 from the no-load position 40 to the expanded positions 41a, 41b, 41c, 42, in other words, the extension speed of the dicing tape 12 is described in the first embodiment. As shown in FIG. 5, the speed from the no-load position 40 to the expanded position 41a in the first step is set to be the slowest and the speed is gradually increased thereafter. The reason is that the familiarity with the expanding operation of the dicing tape 12 is taken into consideration. On the other hand, without limiting to this, for example, the first step may be the slowest and the second to fourth steps may be the same speed.

Embodiment 2. FIG.
The second embodiment shows a further modification of the position control of the contact member 21a by the control device 30. FIG. Therefore, the configuration of the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101 is not different from the configuration described in the first embodiment, and description thereof is omitted here.
In the first embodiment, regarding the position control of the contact member 21 a by the control device 30, the control for returning the contact member 21 a to the no-load position 40 is performed in each step. On the other hand, in the second embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, the control is performed so as to return to the expanded offset position 43 where the tension is applied to the dicing tape 12 as compared with the no-load position 40. This will be described in detail below.

When the frame-equipped wafer 10 is mounted on the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus 101, the control apparatus 30 has no load position 40 where the contact member 21 a does not contact the ring-shaped frame 13 of the frame-equipped wafer 10 and no load is applied to the dicing tape 12. The contact member 21a is disposed on the surface. At the no-load position 40, the dicing tape 12 is in an unloaded state.
Next, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21a in the direction from the pasting surface 12a to the back surface 12b of the wafer with frame 10 to push down the ring-shaped frame 13 and move it to the expanded position 41a of the first step. Up to this point, the control operation is the same as in the first embodiment.
After stopping at the expanded position 41 a for a specified time, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21 a so as to return to the expanded offset position 43. Here, the expanded offset position 43 is a position that is positioned closer to the final expanded position 42 than the no-load position 40 and that cancels, that is, cancels out the plastic deformation of the dicing tape 12 due to the stretching operation of the dicing tape 12. When the contact member 21a is positioned at the expanded offset position 43, the dicing tape 12 is in an expanded offset state in which plastic deformation is offset.

Next, after the contact member 21a is stopped at the expanded offset position 43 for a specified time, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21a from the pasting surface 12a to the back surface 12b again, and from the expanded position 41a in the first step. Is also moved to the second step expand position 41b. After stopping the contact member 21 a at the expanded position 41 b for a specified time, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21 a again to return to the expanded offset position 43.
After stopping the contact member 21a at the expanded offset position 43 for a specified time, the control device 30 moves the contact member 21a from the pasting surface 12a to the back surface 12b again, and below the expanded position 41b in the second step. The position is moved to the expanded position 41c of the third step, and after stopping for a specified time, the contact member 21a is moved back to the expanded offset position 43 again.
Then, after stopping for a specified time at the expanded offset position 43, the control device 30 finally moves the contact member 21a from the pasting surface 12a to the back surface 12b, and is positioned below the expanded position 41c in the third step. Move to the final expanding position 42 in four steps. At the stage where the contact member 21a reaches the final expanded position 42, the control device 30 completes a series of expanding operations.

  As specific positions such as the first position expand position 41a, for example, when the no-load position 40 is set to the reference position 0, the expand offset position 43, the first step expand position 41a, the second step expand position 41b, The expanded position 41c and the final expanded position 42 in the third step can be set to 1 mm, 2 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, and 8 mm, respectively.

The effect when implementing the expanding method shown in the second embodiment will be described.
As described above, in the expanding method according to the second embodiment, as in the expanding method according to the first embodiment, the frame-equipped wafer 10 is not expanded from the initial position 40-1 to the final expanded position 42 at once. By repeatedly applying and releasing tension to the dicing tape 12, the dicing tape 12 is gradually stretched. Therefore, the dicing tape 12 can be stretched more evenly as in the case of the first embodiment, and the productivity of the semiconductor device can be improved as compared with the conventional case.
Furthermore, in the expanding method according to Embodiment 2, the following effects can be obtained.

  That is, when the contact member 21a is moved to the expanded positions 41a, 41b, 41c and the dicing tape 12 is stretched in the first to third steps described above, that is, when a tensile force is applied, the shape change of the dicing tape 12 changes. Is in a deformed state by elastic-plastic deformation in which elastic deformation and plastic deformation are combined. Therefore, after the contact member 21a is moved to the expanded positions 41a, 41b, 41c and then the contact member 21a is moved toward the no-load position 40, the dicing tape 12 is contracted, that is, the tensile force is released. At this time, when the contact member 21a is moved to the no-load position 40, the dicing tape 12 may hang down without returning to its original state due to plastic deformation of the dicing tape 12. In this case, there is a concern that the separated chips 11a in the dicing tape 12 may come into contact with each other.

  Therefore, in order to eliminate the possibility of such occurrence, the contact member 21a is moved to the expanded offset position 43, which is a position where the plastic deformation of the dicing tape 12 is canceled. Thereby, the amount that the dicing tape 12 does not completely return to its original state due to plastic deformation can be offset by a minute expand, and the dicing tape 12 can be prevented from sagging. Therefore, the chips 11a do not come into contact with each other, and it is possible to prevent the appearance failure of the chips 11a.

  In the second embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, the expanded offset position 43 is set to the same position for each step. However, as is clear from the above description, the position where the plastic deformation of the dicing tape 12 is eliminated is the expanded offset position 43. Therefore, the expanded offset position 43 can be changed for each step.

  In addition, as described in the first embodiment, it is possible to execute the tensile force application and the tensile force release operation in at least two sets, the positions of the expanded positions 41a, 41b, 41c, and 42, and the stretching speed of the dicing tape 12. The contents can also be applied to the second embodiment.

  The control device 30 that performs the control operation in the first embodiment and the second embodiment is actually realized by using a computer, and is controlled according to a program for executing the described operation.

10 wafer with frame, 11 semiconductor wafer, 11a chip,
12 dicing tape, 12b back surface, 12c thickness direction,
13 ring-shaped frame, 20 expanding ring, 21 frame holding mechanism,
21a contact member, 22 moving mechanism, 30 control device, 40 no-load position,
42 final expanded position, 43 expanded offset position,
101 Semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus.

Claims (6)

A dicing tape to which a semiconductor wafer is attached and diced together with the semiconductor wafer, and a wafer with a frame having a ring-shaped frame fixed to the outer periphery of the dicing tape are mounted, and the dicing tape is stretched to each of the semiconductor wafers. A semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus for dividing into chips,
A circular expanding ring that supports the back surface of the dicing tape opposite to the semiconductor wafer bonding surface between the inner periphery of the ring frame and the outer periphery of the semiconductor wafer;
A contact member that contacts and moves the ring-shaped frame;
In a state where the dicing tape is supported by the expanding ring, the thickness of the dicing tape is between a no-load position where the dicing tape is unloaded and a final expanded position where the stretching of the dicing tape is finally finished. A moving mechanism for moving the contact member in a direction;
A control device for controlling the operation of the moving mechanism, wherein during the movement of the contact member from the no-load position to the final expanded position, the application of the tensile force to the dicing tape and the release of the tensile force are repeated, and In each tensile force application operation, a control device that performs control to increase the tensile force to the dicing tape than the previous tensile force application operation,
A semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus comprising:   2. The semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control device performs control to return the contact member to the no-load position in the operation of releasing the tensile force applied to the dicing tape.   In the operation of releasing the tensile force to the dicing tape, the control device performs control to return the contact member to the expanded offset position, where the expanded offset position is located closer to the final expanded position than the no-load position. The semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus is a position that cancels plastic deformation of the dicing tape due to the tensile force application operation. In order to divide the semiconductor wafer into each chip, to which a semiconductor wafer is attached and a dicing tape that is diced together with the semiconductor wafer, and a wafer with a frame having a ring-shaped frame fixed to the outer periphery of the dicing tape are mounted. An expanding method executed in a semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus provided with a control device for controlling a tensile force applying operation to the dicing tape performed in
When the dicing tape is stretched from the unloaded state when the wafer with a frame is mounted to the semiconductor wafer expanding apparatus to the final expanded state where the dicing tape is finally extended, the tension is applied to the dicing tape. Repeats the application of force and release of tensile force, and in each tensile force application operation, performs control to increase the tensile force to the dicing tape than the previous tensile force application operation.
An expanding method characterized by that.   The expanding method according to claim 4, wherein in the operation of releasing the tensile force on the dicing tape, control is performed to return the dicing tape to the unloaded state.   In the operation for releasing the tensile force to the dicing tape, control is performed to return the dicing tape to the expanded offset state. Here, the expanded offset state is closer to the final expanded state than the unloaded state, and a tensile force applying operation is performed. 5. The expanding method according to claim 4, wherein the dicing tape is in a state of canceling out plastic deformation of the dicing tape.

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