Precision cutting of single crystal silicon using CBN tool with large top corner radius

A lot of studies on the ultra-precision cutting of single crystal silicon have been reported and they used the diamond cutting tools. However, the diamond cutting tools are very expensive. Therefore, if the single crystal diamond tools were replaced with sintered CBN tools, the cost of machining could be fairly reduced. However, it is easily expected that the CBN tools wear out faster than the diamond tools. Therefore, it is very important to find out the optimum cutting conditions in order to reduce tool wear. In this study, precision cutting of single crystal silicon was machined with using CBN cutting tools having chamfer at cutting edge and large nose radius, and the effect of feed rate, cutting speed, depth of cut and nose radius on the tool wear were studied. As a result, the local minimum of width of flank wear land appeared at the feed rate of 30~50 µm/rev.