Key points in sample preparation：

1、Cutting

Microelectronic components are small in size and have complex material composition, which makes their cutting very targeted and requires very high precision. Therefore, we usually recommend using a metallographic precision cutting machine with high precision and small removal volume to extract the target. Due to the diversity of materials, we usually use small-sized resin diamond cutting blades for cutting.

Because cracks are prone to occur in ceramics, chips and glass, for sensitive or small samples that are difficult to clamp, we usually recommend cold mounting before cutting.

                                        ExactCut-10 Automatic Precision Cutting Machine                                                       Diamond Cutting Blade

                                                        Before Cutting                                                                                                         After Cutting

2、Mounting

Considering the brittleness of the material composition of microelectronic components and their inability to withstand pressure, cold mounting is recommended to hold and protect the sample.

To avoid the influence of heat on solder and polymer, we recommend epoxy resins with lower curing temperatures among cold mounting resins. For small or crack-prone samples, or when voids or holes must be filled, we usually recommend vacuum impregnation with low-shrinkage epoxy resins to minimize the risk of cracking.

      VacFill-9 multi-station vacuum cold mounting machine                                           MC001 high-transparency vacuum impregnation cold mounting set

                                           Circuit Board Mounting Pic-1                                                                           Circuit Board Mounting Pic-2

3、Grinding & Polishing

The most common problems and solutions for grinding and polishing microelectronic components are as follows:

Solution: Try to start with fine sandpaper, such as 800#/1200# or finer, or you can choose GD-Sof composite fine grinding disc, its rigidity can help achieve good flatness, and its abrasive grain size is finer and milder, avoiding damage to brittle materials.

                                  GD-Sof Complex Fine Grinding Disc                                                                                                   

Solution: When preparing manually or semi-automatically, you can only use the empirical method of "grinding while watching" to find the target area, or use a control tool to control the grinding amount during manual preparation. However, Truer’s Smoothneer-6 automatic grinding and polishing machine has the function of automatically controlling the material grinding amount removal, which can realize the grinding amount removal detection of 50~5000 microns, and can accurately realize the presentation of the target position during the preparation process.

            Manual grinding and polishing amount control fixture                                                                   S-6 grinding amount control interface

Solution: Shorten the polishing time. If a long time is required to polish and remove scratches, use the center loading preparation method, which can effectively reduce the convexity caused by hardness differences and shorten the final polishing time of oxides.

      Relief caused by hardness differences during polishing Photo                                                                  Photo about no relief

Grinding and polishing：

The above recommended parameters are taken from: Preparation method of Ф30 mm microelectronic components with Ф250 mm working plate on automatic grinding and polishing machine Smoothneer-6.