Machining processes for sapphire wafers: a literature review

Sapphire wafers are widely used as the substrates for fabricating GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The quality of LEDs depends directly on the quality of the sapphire wafers. A series of machining processes is required to turn sapphire barstock into wafers with the desired geometry and surface quality. This paper reviews the literature on various machining processes for sapphire wafers: slicing (including outer diameter cut-off grinding, inner diameter cut-off grinding, loose abrasive multi-wire sawing, fixed abrasive slicing, and fixed abrasive multi-wire sawing), flattening (including lapping and grinding), and surface finishing (including mechanical polishing and chemical mechanical polishing). New machining technologies are also introduced.