DISCO Corporation (Headquarters: Ota-ku, Tokyo; President: Kazuma Sekiya) announces that cumulative shipments for laser saws reached 2,000 units in March 2020 since sales began in 2002. Moreover, this record of 2,000 units was achieved within half of the period that it had taken cumulative shipments for laser saws to reach 1,000 units, in July 2014.

Background

In recent years, with the widespread use of mobile devices, such as smartphones, and the growing need for higher capacity and higher operation-speed storage and cloud servers, miniaturization and an increase in functionality of semiconductor devices, including NAND flash memory and image sensors, have been advancing. This has led to acceleration in the adoption of DISCO laser saws by major IDM, foundry, and OSAT companies in Asia regions.

• A larger number of companies have been adopting the SDBG process^*1 to produce thin memory chips in response to the need for high-density packaging and higher capacity cloud servers.
• The laser grooving process^*2 has been widely used in removing the insulating film (low-k film) required for miniaturization of logic semiconductors and image sensors.
• Active facility investment in emerging markets, such as China and Southeast Asia regions, in addition to growing needs for each process have also been contributing to the increase in shipments of DISCO laser saws.

The above-mentioned markets are expected to develop with 5G, IoT, and self-driving technology as the drivers of growth. In addition, DISCO’s laser solution applications are expected to expand into a wider range of fields, with a few examples including applications for micro LEDs, which are expected to be used as a next-generation display light source, laser lift-off^*3 technology used to manufacture deep ultra-violet LEDs, which are increasingly adopted for sterilization purposes, and laser patterning^*4 used in the pretreatment plasma dicing process for small die production.

*1 SDBG: Stealth Dicing Before Grinding process. This is a process that achieves die separation by performing backgrinding after stealth dicing (a technique that forms a modified layer by focusing a laser beam inside the workpiece).
*2 Laser grooving：A processing method that removes the surface insulating film (low-k film) on streets by irradiating the surface of a workpiece with a laser. The wafer is usually singulated with blade dicing after removing the film.
*3 Laser lift-off：A processing method that separates the material layer from the substrate by using a laser to irradiate the material layer formed on the substrate.
*4 Laser patterning：A processing method that uses a laser to irradiate the streets of a silicon wafer that has a masking layer attached, such as an organic material, and performs plasma dicing at the areas where the organic material was removed to separate die.