A method for slicing an ingot with a wire saw, comprising: forming a wire row by a wire spirally wound between a plurality of wire guides and configured to travel in an axial direction of the wire; feeding an ingot held with a workpiece-feeding mechanism to the wire row for slicing; and slicing the ingot into a plurality of wafers, while supplying a slurry to a contact portion between the ingot and the wire, wherein a warp direction in a wire travelling direction of a wafer obtained in previous ingot slicing is checked in advance, and the ingot is then sliced under a condition that a warp direction in a workpiece feeding direction of a wafer to be obtained matches the checked warp direction in the wire travelling direction, so that the wafers have identical warp directions in the workpiece feeding direction and in the wire travelling direction.

A crystalline material processing method includes forming subsurface laser damage at a first average depth position to form cracks in the substrate interior propagating outward from at least one subsurface laser damage pattern, followed by imaging the substrate top surface, analyzing the image to identify a condition indicative of presence of uncracked regions within the substrate, and taking one or more actions responsive to the analyzing. One potential action includes changing an instruction set for producing subsequent laser damage formation (at second or subsequent average depth positions), without necessarily forming additional damage at the first depth position. Another potential action includes forming additional subsurface laser damage at the first depth position. The substrate surface is illuminated with a diffuse light source arranged perpendicular to a primary substrate flat and positioned to a first side of the substrate, and imaged with an imaging device positioned to an opposing second side of the substrate.

A protective member forming apparatus includes an integrating unit that integrates a resin sheet held by a chuck table with a wafer by a resin, a conveying unit that conveys the wafer, and a cutting unit that holds, by a cutting table, the wafer integrated with the resin sheet conveyed by the conveying unit and cuts the resin sheet by a cutting section along the wafer. The cutting unit includes a detection unit that images the wafer by a camera and detects a position of a periphery of the wafer, and a control unit that causes cutting of the resin sheet by the cutting section to be performed only in the case where a peripheral edge of the wafer detected coincides with a track of a cutter blade of the cutting section when the preset resin sheet is cut.

A pressing head of the ingot slicing apparatus includes: a head main body in which a plurality of pneumatic supply ports configured to supply compressed air are formed so that pressure on each portion of the pressing head is separately controlled; pressing units installed on a lower end of the head main body, located to correspond to the pneumatic supply ports, and each configured to apply pressure to a side surface of an ingot by the compressed air supplied through each of the pneumatic supply ports; pneumatic correction units each installed on a lower surface of each of the pressing units and configured to control a pressure deviation between the plurality of pressing units; an adhesive plate installed to be in contact with lower side surfaces of the pneumatic correction units so that a lower surface of the adhesive plate is in direct contact with and presses the side surface of the ingot; and a coupling support unit configured to couple and support the head main body, the pressing units, the pneumatic correction units, and the adhesive plate.

A silicon carbide wafer manufacturing method includes: a bending measuring step of measuring a first edge having the greatest degree of a bending at one surface of a silicon carbide ingot having one surface; a cutting start step of starting a cutting at a second edge having a distance of r?a along an edge of the one surface from the first edge in a direction parallel to or with a predetermined off angle with respect to the one surface through the wire saw, a cutting speed being decreased to a first cutting speed in the cutting start step; a cutting proceeding step in which the first cutting speed is substantially constant within a variation of about ?5% of the first cutting speed; and a finish step in which the cutting speed is increased from the first cutting speed and the cutting of the silicon carbide ingot is completed.

The present application provides a residual material removing device, method and system, in which the residual material removing device includes: a loading platform configured to support a material to be cut; a fixing plate abutting against an upper surface of the material to be cut is configured to fix the material to be cut, and one end of the fixing plate is in contact with a residual material in the material to be cut; a first pressing portion in contact with one end of the fixing plate is configured to apply pressing force to one end of the fixing plate to separate the residual material from the material to be cut under the action of the pressing force.

A method of producing a wafer includes forming a peel-off layer in a hexagonal single-crystal ingot by applying a laser beam having a wavelength transmittable through the ingot while positioning a focal point of the laser beam in the ingot at a depth corresponding to the thickness of a wafer to be produced from an end face of the ingot, generating ultrasonic waves from an ultrasonic wave generating unit positioned in facing relation to the wafer to be produced across a water layer interposed therebetween, thereby to break the peel-off layer, and detecting when the wafer to be produced is peeled off the ingot based on a change that is detected in the height of an upper surface of the wafer to be produced by a height detecting unit positioned above the upper surface of the wafer to be produced across the water wafer interposed therebetween.

A marked abrasive wire including, on the cylindrical outer face thereof and between abrasive particles, a mark that is deformed as a function of the twisting of the abrasive wire, this mark extending longitudinally over at least 50% of the total length of the abrasive wire and having a reflectance Rm at a wavelength m,during the displacement of the wire and with the aid of a sensor sensitive to the reflectance of the outer face of the abrasive wire, the reading of at least one characteristic of the current shape of the mark that varies as a function of the twisting of the abrasive wire, andthe estimation of the twisting of the abrasive wire from the observed characteristic of the current shape of the mark and from a known value of this characteristic corresponding to a known twisting of the abrasive wire.

Methods for controlling the surface profiles of wafers sliced from an ingot with a wire saw include measuring an amount of displacement of a sidewall of a frame of the wire saw. The sidewall is connected to a bearing of a wire guide supporting a wire web in the wire saw. Based on the measured amount of displacement of the sidewall, a pressure profile for adjusting a position of the sidewall is determined by a computing device. Pressure is applied to the sidewall using a displacement device according to the determined pressure profile to control the position of the sidewall.

A manufacturing method of a gallium nitride (GaN) substrate includes a peeling layer forming step of forming a peeling layer at a depth, which corresponds to a thickness of the gallium nitride substrate to be manufactured, by relatively moving a GaN ingot and a focal point of a laser beam of a wavelength, which transmits through GaN, along a direction of a crystal orientation of the GaN ingot as represented by the below-described formula (1) with the focal point positioned inside the GaN ingot, and a peeling step of peeling the GaN substrate from the GaN ingot using the peeling layer as a start point. The peeling layer forming step is set such that the laser beam is split to form a plurality of focal points and straight lines connecting the individual split focal points each extend along a direction parallel to the direction of the crystal orientation represented by the below-described formula (1).

1 1 2 0Formula (1)