Development of New Complex Machining Technology for Single Crystal Silicon Carbide Polishing

Abstract

Single-crystal, silicon carbide (SiC) wafers surpass silicon in terms of voltage resistance and heat resistance, and show promise for use in power semiconductor device applications. The aim of this research is to develop a complex machining technology for SiC, which is known to be difficult to process owing to its high hardness. This paper proposes a complex machining method based on converting SiC into a material with a relatively low hardness, and then polishing it using abrasive particles with a higher hardness. The proposed polishing method uses either a photodissociation or an electrochemical technique to reduce the hardness of SiC. The effectiveness of the combined technique is experimentally demonstrated. In addition, a method is proposed for monitoring the processing state by measuring the electric current.