ABSTRACT

Wafer thinning is commonly employed during fabrication of silicon and compound semiconductor IC’s to facilitate through-wafer via formation or otherwise reduce the profile of the finished device. For fragile GaAs substrates, wafers must be attached to a carrier substrate which supports the wafer during the thinning operation. In this paper we review the benefits of employing an automated tool-set for the bonding and subsequent debonding operations during the backend manufacturing process of 150mm GaAs HBT wafers. We compare the cycle time and cost benefits of the automated tools to a legacy time intensive and manual process. We also discuss the lessons learned in transferring the automated tools into volume production.