A cutting apparatus includes a mount flange having a mount land that has a surface for holding a cutting blade as a consumable part, a changing apparatus for changing cutting blades, and a moving unit for moving the changing apparatus between a changing position for changing cutting blades and a retracted position. The changing apparatus includes a rotational shaft, a first holder for holding a used cutting blade, the first holder having a first holding surface facing in an outward direction from the rotational shaft perpendicularly to the rotational shaft, and a second holder for holding a replacement cutting blade, the second holder being disposed in a position angularly spaced a predetermined angle from the first holder around the rotational shaft, the second holder having a second holding surface facing in an outward direction from the rotational shaft perpendicularly to the rotational shaft.

An apparatus for filling a wafer with glass powder includes a supporting device for supporting a wafer, a feeding device and a scraping device, where the feeding device and the scraping device are both provided on an upper side of the supporting device; a lower side of the feeding device is provided with a fetching part, and the feeding device drives the fetching part to move; a lower side of the scraping device is provided with a scraper, and the scraping device drives the scraper to move. After the feeding device evenly applies the glass powder to the wafer through the fetching part, the scraping device removes an excess of the glass powder on the wafer through the scraper to ensure an appropriate amount of glass powder on the wafer, avoiding complex subsequent processing due to excessive glass powder, and avoiding uneven glass powder distribution.

A substrate debonding apparatus configured to separate a support substrate attached to a first surface of a device substrate by an adhesive layer, the substrate debonding apparatus including a substrate chuck configured to support a second surface of the device substrate, the second surface being opposite to the first surface of the device substrate; a light irradiator configured to irradiate light to an inside of the adhesive layer; and a mask between the substrate chuck and the light irradiator, the mask including an opening through which an upper portion of the support substrate is exposed, and a first cooling passage or a second cooling passage, the first cooling passage being configured to provide a path in which a coolant is flowable, the second cooling passage being configured to provide a path in which air is flowable and to provide part of the air to a central portion of the opening.

A wafer processing apparatus includes: a laser apparatus configured to generate a laser beam; a focusing lens optical system configured to focus the laser beam on an inside of a wafer; an arbitrary wave generator configured to supply driving power to the laser apparatus; and a controller configured to control the arbitrary wave generator, wherein the laser beam includes a plurality of pulses sequentially emitted from the laser apparatus, and wherein each of the plurality of pulses is a non-Gaussian pulse, and a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of each of the plurality of pulses ranges from 1 ps to 500 ns.

Disclosed herein is a wafer jig with an identification mark for use in inspecting the function of an identification mark reading mechanism for reading an identification mark on a device wafer. The wafer jig includes a wafer piece cut from a region of a device wafer where an identification mark is formed, and a circular plate having the same diameter as the device wafer. The wafer piece is fixed to the circular plate such that the identification mark on the wafer piece is positionally aligned with the identification mark on the device wafer.

A laser processing apparatus has a control unit including an inspection modified layer former detecting a provisional orientation flat of a bare wafer and applying a laser beam of a predetermined output power level to the bare wafer depending on the direction of the provisional orientation flat thereby to form a modified layer for detecting the crystal orientation closely to an outer edge of the bare wafer, and a crack detector detecting a crack extending from the modified layer toward a Y-axis and an exposed surface of the bare wafer, providing the modified layer extends along an X-axis in an image captured of the modified layer. If the crack detector detects no crack, the control unit determines the modified layer with no crack extending therefrom as extending parallel to the crystal orientation of the bare wafer.

A workpiece cutting method includes attaching a tape to a lower surface of the workpiece, holding the lower surface through the tape on a holding table including a holding plate, at least a part of a holding surface of the holding plate being an imaging area formed of a material transparent to visible light, cutting the workpiece held on the holding table to divide the workpiece, thereby forming a dividing groove, and imaging at least a part of the dividing groove from a upper surface side of the workpiece by using an upper camera portion located above the holding plate, thereby obtaining an upper image, and also imaging the above part of the dividing groove from the lower surface side of the workpiece through the imaging area of the holding plate and the tape by using a lower camera portion located below the holding plate, thereby obtaining a lower image.

A wafer processing method for dividing a wafer into individual device chips. The wafer processing method includes a thermocompression bonding sheet providing step of positioning the wafer in an inside opening of a ring frame and providing a thermocompression bonding sheet on a back side of the wafer and on a back side of the ring frame, a uniting step of heating the thermocompression bonding sheet as applying a pressure to the thermocompression bonding sheet to thereby unite the wafer and the ring frame through the thermocompression bonding sheet by thermocompression bonding, a dividing step of cutting the wafer to thereby form a plurality of dividing grooves and dividing the wafer into the individual device chips, a flattening step of flattening the thermocompression bonding sheet, and a back side observing step of observing the back side of each device chip through the thermocompression bonding sheet.

A processing method for a workpiece, which includes a stacking step of stacking a sheet and a flat plate on a front side of the workpiece to form a stack, a thermocompression bonding step of thermocompression bonding the sheet to the workpiece while planarizing the sheet with the flat plate by heating the sheet and applying an external force to the stack, a holding step of holding the workpiece via the sheet by a holding table having a transparent portion, an alignment step of performing an alignment by imaging the workpiece through the transparent portion and the sheet, and a processing step of processing the workpiece by a processing unit.

An element chip cleaning method including: an element chip preparation step of preparing at least one element chip having a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface, the first surface covered with a resin film; a first cleaning step of bringing a first cleaning liquid into contact with the resin film, the first cleaning liquid including a solvent that dissolves at least part of a resin component contained in the resin film; and a second cleaning step of spraying a second cleaning liquid against the resin film from the first surface side of the element chip, after the first cleaning step.