dicing

Dicing is a crucial step in the fabrication of integrated circuits (ICs). After thousands of individual IC units are created on a semiconductor wafer, they are sliced apart. This process is called dicing the wafer. Each separated unit is then referred to as a die. These dies resemble miniature cities, with circuits acting as roadways.1

The semiconductor wafers themselves are made from highly pure single crystals of materials like silicon or gallium arsenide. After fabrication, the wafer is cut into individual dies, which are then placed into protective plastic packages known as chips. These chips contain metal pins that connect the die to external components, such as a computer's circuit board. Semiconductor devices, including ICs, are fundamental to modern electronics due to their small size, reliability, and affordability.213