Mass production of quartz high-speed chemical etching applied to AT-cut wafers

Abstract

The phenomenon in which etch pits and etch channels did not generate the required etching rate of an AT-cut quartz crystal wafer by carrying out etching at a rate lower than the growth speed of crystal was discovered. The high-speed chemical etching process examined, including lapping to polishing of the crystal wafers, was performed in less than 4 minutes. As a condition for which a mirror surface is possible, the ultra-clean washing method of removing contamination of the crystal wafer before etching was shown to be an important element. The manufacturing process for carrying out batch processing of the crystal wafer of #2000 finish after cutting by this high-speed chemical etching was shown, and mass production was made possible. The high-speed chemical etching. method is applied also to 2 /spl mu/m thickness thin crystal wafer production used at higher operating frequencies.