Dear Members,
I am trying to locate a vendor who could provide low to
moderate precision machining of standard Pyrex wafers
(suitable for anodic bonding to silicon). Several years ago
while talking with ultrasonic (impact) grinding vendors I
heard about one who offered a lower cost alternative, but
unfortunately I have lost the contact information. They
described the process as sort of "micro-sandblasting"
through a fairly durable photoresist mask; similar to ion
milling but much lower technology. I believe they could
pattern feature sizes on the order of a few mils (0.001"),
and while depth control was not great, they could in many
cases etch entirely through standard silicon or Pyrex
wafers.
Something like this would be perfect for what I need now.
My lateral feature size is not at all critical- just several
rows of trenches about 1000 um wide +/- 50 um, extending
almost to the edge of the wafer (it cannot go all the way to
the edge, which rules out sawing). The depth is also not
critical (~100 um deep +/- 50 um), nor is the roughness of
any surface. I do need to align the trenches on this wafer
to micromachined features on a silicon wafer, so a photomask
or other process capable of maintaining at least +/- 25 um
absolute positioning of the trenches across the entire wafer
is required.
Is anyone familiar with this process or vendor? I would
also not rule out standard ultrasonic grinding, but as this
is ultimately intended for high-volume manufacturing, I am
hoping to find a vendor who could offer a lower price than I
have typically been quoted in the past, and I am willing to
sacrifice precision for price. I am open to other
suggestions as well. Thank you for your time.
Marc Straub
Solidus Technologies, Inc.
Colorado Springs, CO USA