In order to develop easily peelable dicing tapes from diced wafers, UV curing of various pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) was studied. After UV irradiation, the adhesive strength of a PSA composition including a diacrylourethane oligomer (UDA) decreased drastically compared with other compositions. Because of network formation via UV irradiation, this composition had a greater volume contraction that might yield microvoids at the interface between the adhesive and the wafer, resulting in the loose adhesion. Its storage modulus increased up to about 1000 times that before UV curing, which was due to the crosslinking of the UDA component. It was suggested that the increased crosslinking density and the high internal coagulant energy of the UDA backbone structure caused a remarkable decrease of the adhesive strength. Furthermore, it was ascertained that the UV-irradiated UDA adhesives left few residual deposits on the wafer released from the tape. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
