Hard and brittle materials such as monocrystalline silicon still occupy an important position in the semiconductor industry, but hard and brittle materials are difficult to process because of their physical properties. Fixed-diamond abrasive wire-saw cutting is the most widely used method for slicing hard and brittle materials. The diamond abrasive particles on the wire saw wear to a certain extent, which affects the cutting force and wafer surface quality in the cutting process. In this experiment, keeping all the given parameters unchanged, a square silicon ingot is cut repeatedly with a consolidated diamond abrasive wire saw until the wire saw breaks. The experimental results show that the cutting force decreases with the increase in cutting times in the stable grinding stage. The wear of abrasive particles starts at the edges and corners, and the macro failure mode of the wire saw is fatigue fracture. The fluctuation of the wafer surface profile gradually decreases. The surface roughness of wafer is steady during the wear steady stage, and the large damage pits on the wafer surface are reduced in the whole process of cutting.
Keywords: cutting force; failure mode; surface profile; surface roughness; wear; wire saw.