A vitrified bond diamond grinding wheel prepared by DLP and grinding performance on single crystal silicon wafer

In order to improve the cooling and chip accommodation ability of the wheel in grinding of silicon wafer, we proposed a novel vitrified bond diamond wheel with arrays of micro-channel (AMC) by an additive manufacturing methods based on digital light processing (DLP). The composition of DLP slurry was optimized by examine the rheological behavior and curing properties for resin system, solid loading, content of photoinitiator and diamond abrasive. Furthermore, the sintering temperature on mechanical properties of debinded segments was also investigated. Finally, the grinding performance of vitrified bond AMC wheel on single crystal silicon wafer was evaluated in comparison with a solid structured (SS) wheel based on DLP.A molecular dynamics (MD) simulation was also used to characterize the material removal of silicon wafer in the grinding process. The results indicate that the slurry composed of 24 wt % resin (70 wt % HDDA and 30 wt % PPTTA), 2 wt % TPO, 49 vol % solid loading and 25 vol% diamond abrasive show the sufficient fluidity and good curing performance. Under a sintering temperature of 560 °C, the grinding wheel segments can obtain a maximum flexural strength of 77 MPa with a Rockwell hardness of 75 HRB. In the grinding process, the AMC wheel produces a higher grinding ratio (49) and a lower surface roughness (Ra 0.059 μm) on silicon wafer in comparison with SS wheel. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations indicate that increasing the grinding speed decreases the grinding force but increases the grinding temperature. In contrast, increasing the grinding depth simultaneously increases both the grinding force and the grinding temperature. Furthermore, higher grinding speeds and small grinding depths (feed rates) help reduce grinding-wheel wear and improve the wear ratio under the combined effects of grinding force and temperature.