A new process design for manufacturing sapphire wafers

In recent years sapphire has been used in a wide range of applications. Positive characteristics like high hardness values and great resistance against mechanical and chemical strains have helped sapphire to be more frequently used in industrial production. Besides optics and consumer electronics, LED wafer manufacturing has the largest and most rapidly growing share in the application of sapphire. To improve the cost efficiency in mass production, it is necessary to continuously improve all production steps. In sapphire surface processing, lapping and polishing steps with loose abrasives are the biggest cost drivers. Substitution of the lapping process with double face grinding with planetary kinematics process enables significant reduction of process time t(p) and production costs per wafer.