[mems-talk] Cutting chips with fragile free-standing devices into small pieces

[Nicolas Duarte]

The best possible solution would be to release it after you have done 
the dicing.

Another option which only sometimes works is to coat the finished 
device in photoresist before dicing.  As long as your device does not 
succumb to stiction from the PR or the solvent you later use to 
remove the PR you should be ok.

Nicolas Duarte
PhD Student
Penn State University
Electrical Engineering

At 3:39 PM +0100 9/4/06, D. Zhou wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>I am fabricating some free-standing MEMs devices based on SOI wafer. 
>Now I need to cut the chips into individul devices to do some 
>measurements. The problem is that the structure is so fragile that 
>when cutting it using scriber and breaking it with hands the whole 
>structure collapses. Could anyone who has been faced with the same 
>problem please give me any suggestions?