User:Eordaz-pulido/sandbox/Dicing Tape Draft

Dicing Tape is an adhesive tape used to hold silicon wafers during the dicing process to create semiconductor chips. During the wafer dicing process, dicing tape is applied on a steel ring, and cut out as the base the wafer slice is applied on top to begin the wafer dicing process. Dicing Tape serves as the base for these semiconductor wafers and has become the norm during this process to extract die from your wafer which would become your semiconductor chip. After they are extracted from the wafer, the tape is removed.

The Dicing Process
During the Dicing Process, thinly sliced wafers are placed upon the dicing tape that serves as the base fixated under a steel ring. Then the tape is cut either using a scribe or a mechanical saw, but lately, there is a newer technique that uses a laser cutter that removes the break step and cuts straight through. Then after you remove the individual die you remove the dicing tape either through the thermal radiation method or the UV method, depending on the tape. Dicing tape serves as the foundation for the process as without the tape you are unable to fit the wafer inside the steel ring and keep it stable.

Materials
Dicing tapes are made of plastic film that has a pressure adhesive attached to them, which is important to maintain a strong bond with the wafer. The material that creates this adhesive is Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is also used in PVC pipes or the plastic pipes used in plumbing. Also could be made of Polyolefin (PO) which is also used as part of the adhesive.

Types of Dicing Tape
There are mainly two types of dicing tapes and the main differences between each of them are their adhesiveness and the process in which the tape is removed after cutting out the die from the wafer. The types of dicing tapes are:

UV Tape: UV Tape is a type of dicing tape that is made easy to remove when it is exposed to UV radiation. More widely used when dicing standard semiconductor wafer, and has two stages of adhesiveness, the first being the strongest stage when it's holding the die together, the second being weaker when exposed to UV radiation to be removed. Also requires a special UV lamp to remove the tape from the die, which could be more expensive.

Thermal-release Tape: Thermal-release Tape is a more rare specialized tape that is more rarely tape because it has more specific uses when it is being used as dicing tape. To remove the tape from the wafer, it is exposed to heat for the tape to lose its bond and make removal easier. This could make it cheaper since you only need some form of heat to separate the bond, while UV tape needs a UV lamp.

Advantages of Dicing Tape
Dicing tape is widely used because it has a strong bond and can hold the wafer together for it to stay in place to make those precision cuts of the die pieces. Is a very stable and reliable piece of tape. Used for large or small dies, prevents static, and is expandable. Very portable since most tapes come in a small roll when bought and shipped.

Disadvantages to Dicing Tape
The adverse effects of dicing tape are since the bond that is holding the wafer piece with the base together is so strong, at times it becomes increasingly difficult to remove the adhesive tape from the die as you could risk damaging the piece since it is very thin and delicate. Since semiconductor technology is constantly advancing in this modern age of electronics, to successfully manufacture these parts the materials used have to be even more reliable, so standard dicing tape is starting to become less reliable and more problematic.