Peripheral Particle Traps for Semiconductor Singulation Debris
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Solution Overview
Problem
Miniaturized semiconductor devices, such as MEMS, are sensitive to powders that can accumulate and reduce their performance, and existing manufacturing methods generate powder that can reach the active areas, causing performance issues.
Innovation Solution
A semiconductor device design with a trapping region peripherally positioned around the active region, featuring tapered trapping apertures that guide particles by gravity into trapping chambers, preventing them from reaching the active area, and a method for manufacturing these devices that includes shaping the apertures to trap powder generated during the singulation process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If wafer singulation is performed by laser cracking, then semiconductor devices can be separated, but powder is generated that accumulates in active areas and reduces device performance
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the harmful function of the peripheral region by introducing trapping apertures that capture and retain powder particles generated during singulation, preventing them from reaching the active area. The trapping region acts as a separate entity that isolates harmful particles from the sensitive active region.
Solution Approach 2:
The trapping region serves as an intermediary between the singulation process and the active area, intercepting powder particles through trapping apertures before they can contaminate the active region. This intermediate structure protects the active area from harmful particles.
2Reliability
If the trapping aperture is made narrow to prevent particle exit, then particle retention improves, but particle entry becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The trapping aperture is designed with an inverted geometry where the opening facing the active area is narrower and the opening facing the trapping chamber is wider. This inversion allows particles to easily enter through the wider opening while making exit difficult through the narrower opening, leveraging the asymmetry to achieve both entry ease and retention reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The trapping aperture employs asymmetric dimensions with different opening sizes at opposite ends. The first opening (facing active area) has a smaller diameter than the second opening (facing trapping chamber), creating an asymmetric structure that facilitates particle entry while preventing exit, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of entry and retention reliability.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If the trapping region is positioned peripherally with respect to the active region, then powder capture is effective, but device area is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The semiconductor device is segmented into distinct functional regions: an active region for device operation and a peripheral trapping region for particle capture. This segmentation allows the trapping function to be isolated from the active area, enabling effective powder capture without significantly reducing the active region area, as the trapping region utilizes the peripheral space.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Effectively prevents powder from reaching the active areas of semiconductor devices, maintaining performance by trapping particles in the designed chambers, even when generated during the manufacturing process.
Implementation Method 1
a particle may be subjected to a force towards the second trapping aperture portion by effect of its own weight, e.g. by virtue of its barycenter being spaced from supporting points on which the particle is supported, which implies a momentum on the particle
Implementation Method 2
at least one trapping aperture has a tapered shape gradually extending from a first trapping aperture portion toward a second trapping aperture portion broader than the first trapping aperture portion
Implementation Method 3
a piggybank effect is achieved, since the particles entering in the trapping chamber through the second trapping aperture portion will have an extremely low probability of exiting from the trapping chamber, since most of the positions within the trapping chamber are either not below an aperture or below a portion of the aperture which is so narrow that doesn't let the particle to exit
Data Source
AI summary
A semiconductor device includes an active region and a trapping region positioned peripherally with respect to the active region, the trapping region presenting trapping apertures permitting the passage of particles, the trapping apertures being in fluid communication with at least one trapping chamber for trapping the particles. A method for manufacturing the semiconductor devices from one semiconductor wafer presents semiconductor device regions to be singulated along a dicing portion line. The method includes in each semiconductor device region, making a semiconductor device precursor by making or applying at least one active element in an active region, making at least one trapping chamber and making, in a trapping region of the semiconductor device region positioned more peripherally than the active region, trapping apertures in fluid communication with the at least one trapping chamber; and singulating the semiconductor device regions by separating the semiconductor device precursors along the dicing portion lines.