How to Cut Metal in Semiconductor Manufacturing: From Ceramic PCB to EV Power Modules
Power semiconductor devices used in electric vehicles often suffer from temperature fluctuations and power efficiency issues, which can trigger heating cycle fatigue and reliability concerns. Fortunately, ceramic PCBs have been widely adopted in EV power modules, providing excellent thermal management, insulation, and cost efficiency.
During ceramic PCB manufacturing, processes such as transferring paint ink onto a substrate, chemical etching, and bonding metal pieces together are widely used to form conductive circuits and assemble electronic components. In chip bonding and substrate fabrication, traditional diamond blade dicing methods are no longer sufficient. Instead, advanced techniques are now applied to cut metal layers and semiconductor substrates with higher precision, enabling the development of third-generation semiconductor technology based on silicon carbide (SiC) chips.
For high-power units, effective thermal control is crucial. Devices such as insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and SiC MOSFETs show significant advantages in managing high current densities. In this context, understanding how to cut metal interconnects and conductive layers is becoming a key step in ensuring the reliability and performance of EV power modules.
Advanced Cutting Techniques for SiC Wafers and Alumina Ceramics
Challenges in A cut list optimizer
Single-crystal silicon carbide (SiC) is a new kind of semiconductor materials. It possesses outstanding electronic and chemical property, making it highly suitable for use in high-frequency, high power, and radiation hardened electronic and sensor applications. Additionally, it serves as an ideal substrate material for fabricating high-performance devices, including ultra-high-brightness white and blue light emitters. The difficult is the sickness of SiC constantly become thin from 380pm to 200pm. Those thinner wafers are more easy to fractures or cause cracks. As result of dicing of silicon wafer, Internal stresses are relaxed. laser beam machining is a way to make up this drawback to add new angle and more functions with thinner of SiC wafer.
Cut List Optimization
in Alumina Ceramic for IGBT Modules
Igbt module consist of alumina ceramic. Alumina combines extreme hardness with limited fracture toughness. Blade cutting have drawbacks for low speed and physical attrition. The reaction of alumina ceramic to laser cutting in conventional laser is heavy.It is not suitable for precise cutting, and the diameter cannot be made finer.
Laser-Based Solutions for Alumina Ceramic Drilling
To overcome these challenges, advanced laser solutions are being applied:
500W single-mode fiber lasers improve cutting precision and reduce breakage risks.
Picosecond and femtosecond lasers enable significant improvements in accuracy and material quality.
Hybrid laser techniques further enhance drilling performance by suppressing thermal damage while maintaining efficient material removal
Laser Cutting process
How lasers contact with materials, These laser cut serve can be categorized into thermal, photo-ablative, and chemically assisted processes. Certainly, wavelength also is crucial for dicing and help with efficiency improvement. The effect of thermal laser process depends on absorption of processed materials.
Principle of Laser Ablation
process are make use of molecular structure interaction principle. For this kind of material, The laser ablation process utilizes an ultra-short pulse laser—with durations ranging from nanoseconds to picoseconds and pulse energies high enough to reach peak powers in the megawatt range. By tightly focusing the beam, a high energy density is achieved, sufficient to precisely ablate the target material.
Fracture Behavior of Silicon Carbide
Silicon Carbide is driven by ductile fracture and crack deflection that provide crack growth. Fraction can exist in transgranular and intergranular.
Grain size
Secondary phases
Manufacturing processes
These structural characteristics determine the mechanical performance of SiC under multi-axial stress conditions.
Advantages of Laser Cutting for SiC
Laser cutting is particularly suitable for high-speed and high-precision applications. Research shows that shorter pulse durations yield better edge quality, minimizing surface damage and micro-cracks. By optimizing laser parameters such as:
Efficiency
Pulse duration
Spot size
Engineers can significantly reduce cutting losses and achieve high-power, high-yield SiC wafer dicing.
Merits Of Modern Laser Cutting
However, laser stealth dicing rely on internal change structure and heat certain area. There is no need to penetrate the wafer, utilizing fracture properties to complete accurate cuts and minimizing surface losses.
Traditional laser cutting, receiving more positive feedback while cutting thin substrates. A the cutting speed of water-jet-guided laser is 150 μm stainless steel sheet. Water guided laster achieved burr-free edges and better processed and less heat-affected zone and more vertical cutting edges compared to conventional laser methods. Waterjet laser technology has been applied in plenty materials in categories shapes, reliablity,and no damage heat transfer.
Water jet cutting Machining for Laser Precision
Working Principle
Abrasive Waterjet (AWJ) machining utilizes high pressure, high velocity water streams mixed with abrasive slurry to erode material. This cold cutting process introduces no heat-affected zones (HAZ), making it ideal for delicate or heat-sensitive components.
Advantages of AWJ Technology
No thermal distortion: avoids microcracks common in laser cutting.
Superior flexibility: suitable for a wide range of materials.
Low cutting force: minimizes stress on fragile substrates.
High quality incisions: surveys show AWJ incisions often achieve better finish quality than laser cutting.
Limitations and Challenges
Burr formation: thin sheet metals are prone to burrs, especially under lower water pressure.
Surface waviness: higher traverse speeds can cause striations or uneven edges.
Kerf characteristics:
Higher traverse speed → narrower kerf thickness but increased kerf taper.
Higher abrasive flow rate does not always improve efficiency; excessive abrasive causes particle interference, leading to reduced performance and narrower kerfs.
Industrial Applications
AWJ cutting is increasingly applied in metal coating processes and energy-related manufacturing, where precision and preservation of material properties are critical.
Conclusion
All in all, With the rapid development of electric vehicles and the increasing demand for high-performance power modules, the requirements for precision, efficiency, and minimal thermal damage in ceramic and semiconductor material processing continue to grow. Laser-based dicing methods—especially ultrafast, stealth, and water-jet-guided lasers—have demonstrated significant advantages in cutting hard and brittle materials like SiC and alumina, offering clean edges, reduced heat-affected zones, and higher throughput. Meanwhile, abrasive waterjet cutting still plays an important role in handling metal-coated ceramics, like properties of gold and heat-sensitive substrates . Due to its cold processing nature and flexibility. In practice, choosing the optimal dicing technology depends on substrate material properties, thickness, application scenarios, and reliability requirements. Moving forward, hybrid approaches that combine the precision of ultrafast lasers with the cooling and adaptability of water-assisted systems may lead to a new era of high-yield, damage-free ceramic substrate and power device processing.
