The Effect of Chemical–Mechanical Processing of Silicon Wafers on Their Surface Morphology and Strength

The mechanical strength of various silicon wafers with a thickness of 100 μm has been studied, depending on the methods of their preparation and the modes of their subsequent grinding or polishing, including chemical–mechanical (HMP). The plates were loaded using the ring-to-ring method, the magnitude of stresses and deflection under the small ring was determined by the finite element method. For all the samples studied, the profiles and roughness parameters of the plates were obtained by stylus profilometry and atomic force microscopy (AFM) when scanning the surface along the baseline and over the area. A direct correlation was found between the strength of the plates and the characteristic parameters of their surface profile (the average values of the magnitude and period of fluctuations in the height of the irregularities).