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)

A peeling apparatus includes: an ingot holding unit holding an ingot with an ingot portion corresponding to a wafer being faced up; an ultrasonic wave oscillating unit which has an end face facing the ingot portion corresponding to the wafer and oscillates an ultrasonic wave; a water supplying unit supplying water to an area between the ingot portion corresponding to the wafer and the end face of the ultrasonic wave oscillating unit; and a peeling unit that holds the ingot portion corresponding to the wafer with suction and peels off the wafer from the ingot.

A workpiece support jig includes a support plate supporting a workpiece on a first surface while covering a support surface of a chuck table with a second surface opposite to the first surface and a retainer plate including an area sufficient to cover the whole of the workpiece and sandwiching the workpiece, held on the first surface of the support plate, between the support plate and itself. The support plate includes a plurality of groove parts corresponding to projected division lines of the supported workpiece and a plurality of through holes formed in chip-holding regions demarcated and divided by the intersecting groove parts. When the workpiece divided by a processing unit into chips is unloaded from the chuck table, the workpiece is unloaded while being sandwiched between the support plate and the retainer plate.

In order to respond flexibly to various processing modes, such as forming curved surface shapes, when cutting a workpiece using a wire saw, this wire saw device (1) is provided with: a single robot arm (2) that is capable of moving freely by means of multi-axis control; a wire saw unit (3) that is detachably connected to the robot arm (2) via a tool changer (7); a wire (8) that spans a plurality of pulleys supported within the wire saw unit (3); and a workpiece cutting zone (20) that is established between the pulleys. The workpiece is cut to a prescribed shape by moving the robot arm (2) in a preset direction while running the wire (8) of the wire saw unit (3) and pressing the wire (8) against the supported workpiece.

A method of processing a plate-shaped workpiece that includes layered bodies containing metal which are formed in superposed relation to projected dicing lines, includes the steps of holding the workpiece on a holding table, and thereafter, cutting the workpiece along the projected dicing lines with an annular cutting blade, thereby separating the layered bodies. The cutting blade has a slit which is open at an outer peripheral edge thereof. The step of cutting the workpiece includes the step of cutting the workpiece while supplying a cutting fluid containing an organic acid and an oxidizing agent to the workpiece.

Provided is a cutting method of cutting a workpiece by using a cutting apparatus including a chuck table configured to hold the workpiece and a cutting unit having a cutting blade configured to cut the workpiece held by the chuck table and an ultrasonic vibrator configured to ultrasonically vibrate the cutting blade in a radial direction of the cutting blade. The cutting method includes a holding step of holding the workpiece by the chuck table, and a cutting step of performing ultrasonic cutting that cuts the workpiece by the cutting blade vibrated ultrasonically and normal cutting that cuts the workpiece by the cutting blade not vibrated ultrasonically on the same cutting line of a plurality of cutting lines set on the workpiece.

Disclosed herein is an electroformed cutting blade having a cutting edge containing super abrasive grains. The cutting edge further contains filler particles formed of silicon-based organic material.

A processing apparatus includes a chuck table for holding a plate-like workpiece under suction. A suction unit is connected to the chuck table, and a processing unit is configured to process the workpiece while supplying processing water to the workpiece. The suction unit includes a first suction source, a first pipe providing fluid communication between the first suction source and the chuck table, a separator arranged in the first pipe, for separating a gas and a liquid drawn in from the chuck table, and a water discharging unit configured to discharge the liquid separated by the separator. The water discharging unit includes a second suction source, a second pipe providing fluid communication between the second suction source and a water discharge port of the separator, and a check valve arranged in the second pipe, for preventing a fluid from flowing from the second suction source to the separator.

An unloading and collecting device for slice and a cutting machine with the same are provided. The device is configured to collect the slice cut from an end of a silicon rod. The device includes a tray, a box, and a movable assembly, and the movable assembly has a rod member connected to the tray. The rod member drives the tray to adsorb the slice, and the movable assembly is operatable to move the tray in a first direction and a second direction, and to rotate the tray to the box.

A cleaving system and method are described. The system can include a holding apparatus to retain a photovoltaic structure at a center section of a cleaving platform. The system can further include a contact apparatus to make contact with the photovoltaic structure and separate it into a plurality of strips. During operation, the system can activate an actuator to move the contact apparatus against the photovoltaic structure, thereby separating the photovoltaic structure into strips.