A method for exposing a buried defect, the method may include illuminating, by a radiation source, an object that comprises the buried defect, with illuminating radiation that passes through radiation transparent part of a chuck, while the object is supported by the chuck; detecting, by a sensor, a detected radiation that passed through the object, to provide a visual indication about the buried defect, wherein the visual indication is indicative of a location of the buried defect; setting, based on the location of the buried object and a spatial relationship between a cleaving element and the sensor, a cleaving axis of a cleaving element to virtually cross the buried defect; and cleaving, by the cleaving element, the object to expose the buried object.

In an ingot cutting apparatus that cuts an ingot using a plurality of stretched wires, load sensors are provided on the new wire side and the old wire side of the ingot, and loads applied to the new wire side and the old wire side of the ingot are measured using the load sensors on the new wire side and the old wire side. When measuring the loads, for example, the center of moment about the X-axis that is the running direction of the wire is calculated. When the deviation from the center of gravity of the ingot is greater than or equal to a reference value, notification for replacement of the wire, control of the conveying speed of the wire, control of the pressing speed of the ingot, and so forth are performed through a control unit.

Cleave systems for separating bonded wafer structures, mountable cleave monitoring systems and methods for separating bonded wafer structures are disclosed. In some embodiments, the sound emitted from a bonded wafer structure is sensed during cleaving and a metric related to an attribute of the cleave is generated. The generated metric may be used for quality control and/or to adjust a cleave control parameter to improve the quality of the cleave of subsequently cleaved bonded wafer structures.

A controller of a cutting apparatus includes: a storage section configured to preliminarily store as a threshold an arbitrary value based on a load current value of a motor detected when a cutting blade is rotated at a predetermined rotational speed while supplying a predetermined quantity of cutting water in a state in which a cutting water supply nozzle is positioned in an appropriate position; and a judgment section configured to judge normality or abnormality according to the result of comparison between a load current value detected when the cutting blade is rotated at the predetermined rotational speed while supplying the predetermined quantity of cutting water and the threshold stored in the storage section.

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. The measured amount of displacement of the sidewall is stored as displacement data. Based on the stored data, 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 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.

Semiconductor wafers having a subsurface-referenced nanotopography of the upper side surface of less than 6 nm, expressed as a maximum peak-to-valley distance on a subsurface and referenced to subsurfaces with an area content of 25 mm?25 mm, are produced from a workpiece by feeding the workpiece through a wire web tensioned between wire guide rollers and divided into wire groups, the wires producing kerfs as the wires engage the workpiece. For each of the wire groups, a placement error of the kerfs of the wire groups is used to compensate movements of the wires of the wire group as a function of the placement error, in a direction perpendicular to the running direction of the wires during feeding of the workpiece through the arrangement of wires, by activating at least one drive element.

A method for separating wafers from donor substrates incudes: determining at least one individual property of a respective donor substrate, the at least one individual property including doping and/or crystal lattice dislocations of the respective donor substrate; generating donor substrate process data for the respective donor substrate, the donor substrate process data including analysis data of the analysis device, the analysis data describing the at least one individual property of the respective donor substrate; generating, via a laser device, modifications inside the respective donor substrate to form a separating region inside the respective donor substrate, the laser device being operable as a function of the donor substrate process data of the respective donor substrate; and generating mechanical stresses inside the respective donor substrate to initiate and/or guide a crack for separating at least one wafer from the respective donor substrate.

A processing apparatus includes a rotatable blade, a blade driving shaft, a table, a position driving mechanism, a first sensor, a second sensor, a start/stop point information extraction section, a characteristic-vibration-information extraction section, and a characteristic-vibration-information extraction section. The shaft drives the blade. The table places a workpiece to be processed. The mechanism changes a relative position between the blade and the workpiece. The first sensor detects a vibration generated by driving the blade. The second sensor detects a vibration generated by driving the blade. The start/stop point information extraction section extracts at least one of a start point information regarding a contact start point and a stop point information regarding a contact stop point based on a detection result of the second sensor. The characteristic-vibration-information extraction section extracts a characteristic vibration information regarding a predetermined characteristic vibration and determines a position of the characteristic vibration.

A carrying apparatus configured to load and/or unload a brick includes: a main body; a transport support configured to move a brick to a brick cutting apparatus in which an insertion space is formed; a lift arm coupled to an upper end portion of the main body and configured to elevate or descend the transport support; and at least one wire connecting the transport support to the lift arm, where the transport support includes a guide rest connected to the at least one wire, and where the lift arm is configured to descend or elevate the transport support via the at least one wire and align the transport support with an alignment guide of the brick cutting apparatus such that the alignment guide corresponds with the guide rest in a vertical direction.