DISCO Laser Saw Shipments Exceed 2000
Laser solution applications expected to expand into a wider range of fields including micro LEDs
DISCO Corporation has announced 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.
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, miniaturisation and an increase in functionality of semiconductor devices, including NAND flash memory and image sensors, have been advancing.
A larger number of companies have been adopting SDBG (Stealth Dicing Before Grinding) to produce thin memory chips in response to the need for high-density packaging and higher capacity cloud servers. The laser grooving process has been widely used in removing the insulating film (low-k film) required for miniaturization of logic semiconductors and image sensors.
This has led to acceleration in the adoption of DISCO laser saws by major IDM, foundry, and OSAT companies in Asia regions.
In addition, DISCO says its 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 technology used to manufacture deep ultra-violet LEDs, which are increasingly adopted for sterilisation purposes; and laser patterning used in the pretreatment plasma dicing process for small die production.
