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Die singulation by mechanical sawing has been the primary technology used in semiconductor device fabrication for decades. However, as device structures continue to evolve to meet increasing performance requirements, fundamental limitations of the sawing operation have been exposed. Obtaining reasonable dicing throughput and yield for die less than 100µm thick is a challenge for the sawing operation. One alternative to saw-based dicing is die singulation using plasma etching. This paper compares and contrasts plasma dicing on tape (PDOT) processes to conventional mechanical saw and laser processes. While saw-and laser-based processes are serial in nature, plasma dicing is a parallel process, which significantly increases equivalent cutting speeds, particularly for die that are less than 150µm thick. Along with higher die throughput, plasma dicing can deliver higherquality die than alternative methods. Die singulated by plasma dicing have shown up to 9 times greater die strength than mechanically sawed die. Finally, the paper discusses issues and solutions related to PDOT process integration, including maintaining tape integrity, street definition / masking approaches, and downstream integration.

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