Predetermined breaking points for depanelization
Especially when using hard-brittle materials for the production of circuit carriers in hybrid electronics, the production in a so-called panel arrangement, which means the arrangement of several individual circuits on a raw substrate or wafer for joint production as a batch, has proven itself. With the help of laser scribing, scribe lines are inserted on the substrate, which damage the base material in a defined way as a close sequence of blind holes and thus enable the mechanical separation of the PCB into the individual components after the production run by breaking along these scribe lines.
With the pearl chain-like stringing of blind holes, both the penetration depth and the spacing or overlapping of the individual blind holes can be determined. If there is a large overlap, this is referred to as the production of a notch trench, which in turn has a strong resemblance to the notch trenches introduced during the punching of unfired ceramic substrates (green state). This processing technology enables more efficient production of individual parts by means of a panel arrangement not only for ceramic materials, but also for glasses, silicon and even some metals.
Technical Details
The advantages of laser scribing in detail:
- non-contact process, no micro-cracks in the material
- minimal heat-affected zone and high scribing speed
- high flexibility because of individually determinable scribing depth and distance
- optimum area utilisation and material yield due to smallest possible joint widths
- clean, precise cutting with high quality of the individual elements
In which areas is laser scribing used?
A small selection of possible applications for laser scribing:
- for separating wafers in the semiconductor industry
- for separating already printed, sputtered ceramic substrates into individual elements
- for separating panel arrays on thick-film/thin-film substrates
- for structuring IR filter elements
Further services for you
Also discover our other diverse processing technologies. We manufacture precise and individual components according to your specifications - from laser cutting to laser structuring to precision bending.
