Panasonic and Tokyo Seimitsu Enter into Joint Development to Promote Laser Grooving Device Used in Plasma Dicing Process

Panasonic Factory Solutions Co., Ltd.
Tokyo Seimitsu Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Factory Solutions Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan, President: Hiroyuki Aota/hereafter "Panasonic Factory Solutions") and Tokyo Seimitsu Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan, President and CEO: Hitoshi Yoshida/hereafter "Tokyo Seimitsu") have entered into a business tie-up to promote a "laser grooving and plasma dicing method" to enable the damage-free dicing of chips with metal layers, such as those used for sensors and memory, from wafers.

In the production of sensors and memory chips, pixel-size shrinkage and wafer thinning have led to issues with falling yields and the cracking of the chips. The "laser grooving and plasma dicing method" realizes higher yields by avoiding contamination in sensor production and achieves damage-free and higher-quality wafer thinning in memory chip production, with the superiority of the plasma dicing method.

As shown in the figure below, in the case of a semiconductor chip with a metal layer, a "mask" is pasted for blocking purpose, and grooves of several tens of microns (μm) in width are formed. Plasma is then irradiated exclusively into the grooves needed for dicing the chips. A "laser grooving equipment" is designed to form these grooves using the laser-based precision processing technique.

1. Purpose of Business Tie-up
   The development of plasma-dicing solutions, as required for the ultrathin wafers used to fabricate image sensors for which the pixel size is shrinking, as well as memory devices with multiple layers, requires a combination of a "plasma processing technique", in which Panasonic Factory Solutions excels, and a "measurement and laser-based precision processing technique", which is a specialty of Tokyo Seimitsu.
2. Contents of Business Tie-up
   1) Joint development of "laser grooving equipment" for cutting mask and metal layer with a laser in the stage prior to the plasma dicing process
   2) Sales collaboration of "laser grooving equipment" and "plasma dicing equipment"

Panasonic Factory Solutions and Tokyo Seimitsu will strive to create total solutions in dicing process for the future through strong partnership.