A method of cutting a workpiece includes forming a guide groove to a depth smaller than the predetermined depth in the workpiece, the guide groove extending from the outer peripheral edge to an end portion of the device area, by causing a cutting blade to cut into the workpiece held on the holding surface of the chuck table from an outer peripheral edge of the workpiece along one of the projected dicing lines; and forming a groove to the predetermined depth in the workpiece along the projected dicing line, the groove extending from the device area beyond an opposite end of the device area to a portion of the outer peripheral extra area, after lowering the cutting blade toward and into the guide groove in the device area and then positioning a cutting edge thereof at the predetermined depth.

A wafer processing method for forming cut grooves in streets of a wafer provided with a plurality of devices includes a holding step ST1 of holding the back surface side of the wafer by a holding surface of a chuck table, a measurement step ST2 of partitioning the front surface of the wafer held by the chuck table into a plurality of regions and measuring the surface height of the streets in each of the regions, a region-basis height setting step ST3 of setting the lowest surface height in each region as the surface height of the wafer in each region, and a cutting step ST4 of forming cut grooves in the front surface of the wafer while setting, on a region basis, a tip position of a cutting blade, based on the surface height of the wafer set in the region-basis height setting step ST3.

A substrate processing method includes a processing liquid supplying step of supplying a processing liquid having a solute and a solvent to a surface of a substrate, a processing film forming step of solidifying or curing the processing liquid supplied to the surface of the substrate to form, on the surface of the substrate, a processing film that holds a removal object present on the surface of the substrate, a peeling step of supplying a peeling liquid forming liquid to the surface of the substrate to put the peeling liquid forming liquid in contact with the processing film and form a peeling liquid, and peeling the processing film, in the state of holding the removal object, from the surface of the substrate by the peeling liquid, and a removing step of continuing the supply of the peeling liquid forming liquid, after the peeling of the processing film, to wash away and remove the processing film from the surface of the substrate in the state where the removal object is held by the processing film.

A object cutting method includes a first step of attaching an expandable sheet to a front surface or a back surface of a object, a second step of irradiating the object with a laser light along a line to cut to form a modified region, and expanding the expandable sheet to divide at least a part of the object into a plurality of chips and to form a gap that exists between the chips and extends to a side surface crossing the front surface and the back surface of the object, a third step of, after the second step, filling the gap with a resin from an outer edge portion including the side surface of the object, a fourth step of, after the third step, curing and shrinking the resin, and a fifth step of, after the fourth step, taking out the chips from the expandable sheet.

A cutting apparatus includes a cassette table on which a first cassette in which a frame unit, ring-shaped frame and wafer are housed, and a second cassette in which a simple wafer is housed. A first conveying unit having a first frame holding part holds the ring-shaped frame of the frame unit withdrawn from the first cassette and conveys the frame unit to a chuck table. A first wafer holding part holds the simple wafer withdrawn from the second cassette and conveys the simple wafer to the chuck table. A cutting unit cuts the wafer, and a second conveying unit conveys the frame unit from the chuck table to a cleaning unit. A second wafer holding part holds the cut simple wafer and conveys it from the chuck table to the cleaning unit.

A cutting apparatus includes a cutting unit cutting an outer peripheral edge of a wafer to form an annular groove; a holding section holding the wafer in a rotatable manner; a line scan camera having imaging elements arranged in a row along a width direction of the annular groove so as to face the annular groove of the wafer held by the holding section and capturing the annular groove while rotating the holding section to output a signal; an inspection section obtaining an image of the annular groove corresponding to an entire circumference of the wafer from the signal output by the line scan camera and detecting a width of the annular groove and a chipping from the formed image; and a warning section sending warning information in a case in which an inspection result of the inspecting section is out of an allowable range registered in advance.

Apparatus for forming a protective member on a wafer includes a stage for mounting a sheet, the stage having a frame and a chuck table supported to and surrounded by the frame, the frame having a plurality of air supply holes opening to the upper surface of the frame. A holding unit is adapted to be moved to a position opposed to the stage for holding the wafer, and a resin supply unit supplies a liquid resin to the upper surface of the sheet placed on the stage. The liquid resin is formed into the protective member. A sheet pressing pad vertically movably supported so as to be opposed to the sheet is placed on the stage. The sheet pressing pad comes into contact with a part of the sheet placed on the stage in an area inside the air supply holes, thereby pressing the sheet.

A testing apparatus for measuring a strength of a chip includes: a cassette mounting base on which to mount a cassette capable of accommodating wafer units; a frame fixing mechanism that fixes an annular frame of the wafer unit; a conveying mechanism that conveys the wafer unit between the cassette and the frame fixing mechanism; a pushing-up mechanism that pushes up a predetermined chip included in the wafer supported by the annular frame fixed by the frame fixing mechanism; a pick-up mechanism having a collet picking up the chip pushed up by the pushing-up mechanism; a strength measuring mechanism having a support unit supporting the chip picked up by the collet; and a collet moving mechanism that moves the collect from a position facing the pushing-up mechanism to a position facing the support unit.

A packaged wafer processing method includes a processing step of processing each division line formed on a packaged wafer by using a laser beam applying unit and a feeding mechanism, and indexing the wafer by a preset index amount a corresponding to the pitch of the division lines by using an indexing mechanism, thereby forming a laser processed groove along each division line. A correcting step images the next division line to be processed in an exposed peripheral portion of the wafer and the laser processed groove just formed along the present division line, at any arbitrary time during the processing step. The distance b between the next division line and the laser processed groove just formed is determined, and then a correction index amount c is calculated by using the deviation corresponding to the difference (ab) between the preset index amount a and the distance b.

Disclosed herein is a device wafer processing method including a protective film forming step of applying a water-soluble protective film material to the front side of a device wafer having devices separated by division lines and next exposing the division lines to form a protective film for protecting each device, an application time recording step of recording the time at which the water-soluble protective film material is applied to the device wafer, a determining step of determining whether or not a predetermined duration has elapsed from the time recorded in the application time recording step, an etching step of dry-etching the device wafer along the division lines after performing the determining step, and a protective film removing step of supplying a cleaning water to the protective film to thereby remove the protective film after performing the etching step. Only when it is determined in the determining step that the predetermined duration has not elapsed, the etching step is performed.