Each dicing method has distinct advantages for different substrate materials, die sizes, and cleanliness requirements. Our engineers recommend the optimal method based on your device.
Standard Blade Dicing, Silicon
Rotating diamond blade dicing for silicon wafers from 4 to 12 inches. The workhorse of MEMS and IC singulation for rectangular dies on standard circular substrates. Automatic wafer map reading enables die-level quality sorting, accepted and rejected dies identified before dicing begins. Kerf width controlled to ±2 µm for maximum die yield from expensive wafers. Cooling water spray prevents blade overheating and removes silicon swarf during cutting.
Blade Dicing, Glass & Ceramic
Glass dicing for circular wafers (4 to 12 inch) and large rectangular panels up to 500 × 600 mm. Quartz, borosilicate, aluminosilicate, and alumina (Al₂O₃) diced with glass-specific blades at lower feed rates than silicon. Thick glass dicing available for glass interposer substrates and MEMS package lids. Large-format glass dicing (300 × 400 mm and 500 × 600 mm) for display substrates, biochip arrays, and panel-level packaging, a capability beyond the circular-wafer limit of standard dicing houses.
Stealth Laser Dicing
A pulsed laser modifies a plane inside the silicon wafer along the dicing streets without breaking the surface or producing any debris. A subsequent tape expand step singulates the dies, completely dry, no water, no dicing debris, no blade contact. Stealth dicing is selected where optical waveguide facet quality must be preserved and fragile MEMS membranes protected from water and particle contamination; edge damage and facet roughness are qualified against the application. Enables polygon-shaped dies (hexagonal, octagonal) impossible with straight-blade dicing. No change in die size limitation, works from sub-millimeter dies to large multi-centimeter dies.
Diamond Scribing
Mechanical scribing with a diamond tip along the dicing street followed by controlled cleaving, a standard singulation method for single-crystal compound semiconductors with cleavage planes that chip or crack under blade dicing contact. InP and GaAs have preferential crystallographic cleavage planes that guide the cleave, producing clean die edges; SiC and polycrystalline AlN ceramic are diced by blade or laser. Applied to InP photonic dies and GaAs MMIC chips where blade contact causes micro-cracking at the die edge that degrades electrical isolation and mechanical reliability.