A brittle-like regime wafer dicing process with in-situ discharge dressing

Conventional electroformed diamond (EFD) blades suffer from low abrasive concentration and inadequate substrate rigidity, leading to rapid clogging or dulling. This renders them disposable, resulting in high tooling costs. This study proposes a wafer dicing system with Electric-Discharge In-situ Dressing (EDID), which enables real-time conditioning of a boronous polycrystalline diamond (BPD) blade (>95% diamond concentration) to replace conventional electroformed blades. By integrating an inhouse-designed EDID mechanism and a pulse-width modulated RC relaxation circuit, the BPD blade can be dressed in-situ without removal or re-alignment. This approach produces uniform, high-density cutting edges and chip pockets, enabling precise dicing of single-crystal silicon (SC-Si) wafers with minimal deviation or waviness. To enhance efficiency, a brittle-like regime cutting strategy is adopted, achieving a kerf chipping ratio (KCR, defined as the ratio of kerf depth to maximum chipping depth) exceeding the commercial benchmark of 1.34 under 2,166 m/min cutting velocity, 4.2 mm/min feed-rate, and 50 µm/stroke depth of cut. This method resolves kerf meandering, misalignment, and edge chipping common to EFD blades, offering tangible benefits to the semiconductor industry and strong commercialization potential.