Corrosion inhibitors for water-base slurry in multiblade sawing

The use of a water-base slurry instead of the standard PC oil vehicle was proposed for multiblade sawing (MBS) silicon wafering technology. Potential cost savings were considerable; however, significant failures of high-carbon steel blades were observed in limited tests using a water-based slurry during silicon wafering. Failures were attributed to stress corrosion. A specially designed fatigue test of 1095 steel blades in distilled water with various corrosion inhibitor solutions was used to determine the feasibility of using corrosion inhibitors in water-base MBS wafering. Fatigue tests indicate that several corrosion inhibitors have significant potential for use in a water-base MBS operation. Blade samples tested in these specific corrosion-inhibitor solutions exhibited considerably greater lifetime than those blades tested in PC oil.