Rohm Co., Ltd.

Hiroshi Kadonishi

Koichi Kudo

Koichi Kitaguro

It is an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor chip which is hard to be damaged when the semiconductor chip is cut out from a sheet of wafer for semiconductor and a method for manufacturing thereof. Cutting grooves 26 having a wider width than scribing lines (lines for carrying out scribing) 24 which is cut by a dicing saw are formed on the upper part of the wafer 20. That is, walls 32 of the cutting grooves 26 are set back from cutting planes 30 in side walls 28 of die 22 thus cut out. So that, there is only a slight probability of contact of the dicing saw with the walls 32 of the cutting grooves 26 when the wafer 20 is cut along the center of the cutting grooves 26 with the dicing saw. As a result, it is possible to prevent chips of the upper part of the dies 22 caused by a blade of the dicing saw.

Semiconductor chip and a method for manufacturing thereof

A method for dividing a plural number of semiconductor devices into individual semiconductor devices to increase the number of chips manufactured per wafer by forming scribing lines in narrow width. Isotropic etching, such as plasma etching in CF.sub.4, O.sub.2 gas, is carried out by utilizing resist layer 31c to 35a as a mask. Then by carrying out heat treatment the resist layer 31 to 35a loosens, and as a result, side walls of the passivation layer 15 are covered with the resist layer. N type epitaxial layer 4 of the openings 24 and 25 for the scribing line is etched by carrying out isotropic plasma etching once again. Since the side walls of the passivation layer 15 of the openings 24 and 25 for the scribing line are covered with the resist layer, the openings 24 and 25 are not etched in the horizontal direction.

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Kyoto, Japan

Hiroshi Kadonishi