Physics / mechanism
Bonding and dicing are back-end-of-line (BEOL) and advanced packaging unit processes. Dicing separates individual die from a wafer via blade dicing (kerf ~50–150 µm), laser dicing (stealth or ablative, kerf <10 µm), or plasma dicing (kerf <5 µm, best edge strength). Bonding attaches die to substrate or die-to-die: thermocompression bonding (TCB) operates at 200–400°C with <1 µm placement accuracy; hybrid bonding (Cu-Cu direct) achieves <200 nm bond pitch, enabling sub-micron interconnect density. Bonder throughput runs 1,000–3,000 UPH for mass reflow, ~200–500 UPH for TCB. Key vendors: DISCO (dicing), Besi, Kulicke & Soffa, ASM Pacific (bonding), EV Group and SUSS MicroTec (wafer-level). Hybrid bonding is the leading-edge inflection, driven by HBM, chiplets, and CIS stacking.
Competitive landscape
Hybrid bonding competes with and complements microbump/flip-chip (minimum pitch ~40 µm vs. hybrid bonding’s <10 µm). Fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) sidesteps bonding density limits through redistribution layers but sacrifices interconnect latency. Through-silicon via (TSV) provides vertical interconnect but requires separate bonding steps. Laser dicing increasingly displaces blade dicing for thin wafers (<100 µm) and compound semiconductors (GaAs, SiC, GaN) where cleave quality matters for RF and power devices.
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.