The high hardness and brittleness of the glass (including germanium, silicon and other semiconductor material).  abrasive tools Machining commonly used of the cutting wheel, drilling, grinding and polishing.The most simple method of cutting a glass sheet thickness of 3 mm or less, that is: the manual scribing the glass surface with a diamond or other hard substance, the use of the score at the stress concentration can be hand broken.
Mechanical cutting of the glass, general use of a thin plate (or stainless steel sheet) made of circular saw blades, and to add abrasive and water in the cutting process. Commonly used abrasives is a particle size of about No. 400 of silicon carbide or diamond. When the rod-shaped semiconductor ingot cut to a thickness of about 0.4 mm of the wafer, using an annular circular saw blade, cutting its inner circumference on the rod-like ingot, cutting a wafer of a thickness of 0.4 mm, the slit width 0.1 to 0.2 mm. Square wafer plane of the cut is often used to direct draw scratches broken sheet wheel, circular wafers may also be used ultrasonic cutting.
 Grinding and polishing glass works with metal similar. The surface of the glass after polishing is translucent fuzz surface, must be glossy surface after polishing to become transparent. Polishing pressure is generally 1000 to 3000 Pa, the abrasive particle size of available W5 ~ 20 of quartz sand, corundum, silicon carbide or boron carbide, and abrasive water ratio of about 1:2. Glass after grinding, the formation of matte side often leaving the average depth of 4 to 5 microns of the uneven layer, and individual crack depth list, so the polishing is often required to remove the glass layer 20 microns thick, this thickness is approximately polishing removal the amount of about 1/10, but the polishing time than the grinding length (hours to several tens of hours). Polishing disc material is usually felt, wool, or plastic, the abrasive used is a particle size of less than W5, iron oxide (Pink), such as cerium oxide and zirconium oxide powder (less than 5 microns in diameter). Grinding prepare a suspension of the same amount of water as a polishing agent, preferably 5 ~ 20 ℃ ambient temperature effect.