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Nitto Denko has developed the world's first cleaning wafer that removes waste from wafer prober absorption tables without having to shut down the testing process.
The wafer consists of a dummy silicon wafer with a synthetic plastic sheet attached to the mirror side.
The dummy wafer clears waste from the prober absorption table by simply passing through the testing prober in the same way as a normal wafer.
The synthetic plastic sheet can then be removed and the waste examined to ascertain where it came from.
Nitto Denko will make both 200 and 300mm cleaning wafers.
Many different sorts of waste collect inside wafer probers such as silicon dust and excess solder from previous operations.
This waste matter is then sent out with the wafers for test probing.
When waste attaches itself to wafer prober absorption tables, the increase in pressure during testing can cause cracks and fractures in wafers, or result in unfavourable alignments for probing.
As such, existing wafer prober systems can only be cleaned by hand after shutting down the equipment.
However, this cleaning can in turn result in waste from operator clothing entering probes, and slows down the testing process.
Nitto Denko's cleaning wafer is inserted into the wafer prober cassette and passed through in the normal manner, efficiently cleaning the absorption table.
This allows wafer damage to be minimised, whilst also boosting prober productivity.
Nitto Denko is currently investigating the feasibility of producing a similar cleaning wafer for use at the manufacturing stage.
 

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