In the semiconductor wafer manufacturing process, wire saws are widely used in the process of cutting semiconductor ingots into wafers. In recent years, materials with greater hardness than Si, such as SiC, GaN, and sapphire, have been used as substrate materials for energy saving. The cutting of these materials requires long times and incurs high costs. Here, we propose electric field-assisted slicing technology (EFS) to achieve both high cutting speed and good surface quality by gathering abrasives around a wire tool using an AC electric field. Here, the basic characteristics of EFS are clarified. We report the results of attaching this system to a commercially available wire saw to improve cutting speed.

This paper describes automatic lapping of gear molds using low-frequency elliptical tool motion and diamond compound. The effects of the relative reciprocating motion between tool and workpiece, which is in the radial direction of the tool, the frequency of elliptical tool motion, and the lapping torque on the lapping unevenness and efficiency were investigated under a fixed elliptical tool motion. The results showed that the lapping unevenness can be suppressed by appropriate settings of the relative reciprocating motion between tool and workpiece, and the polishing torque; a surface roughness of about Ra 0.05 μm can be achieved with 3 μm diamond compound; and the lapping efficiency increased almost proportional to the frequency of elliptical tool motion.