The disclosed system may include a slicing component that has a cutting blade. The cutting blade may be configured to cut a semiconductor wafer into multiple wafer strips, where the wafer strips have flat top surfaces and multiple edges. The system may also include a chuck that has rotatable wafer plate strips that are respectively configured to support the wafer strips. The system may further include a pivot arm that rotates the chuck from a cutting position facing the slicing component to a rotated, polishing position that faces a polishing component. As such, an exposed edge of each wafer strip faces the polishing component. The system may also include a polishing component that is configured to polish at least a portion of the exposed edge of each wafer strip that is facing the polishing component. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

A cutting blade replacement apparatus includes a nut attaching-detaching unit including a nut holding part that holds a nut and a drive part that rotates the nut holding part. When the nut is screwed to a male screw formed at an end part of a boss part of a cutting unit, one of the nut attaching-detaching unit or the cutting unit moves in a Y-axis direction in synchronization with the speed of movement in the Y-axis direction due to the screwing of the nut, and the other of the nut attaching-detaching unit and the cutting unit escapes in the Y-axis direction when a pressing force equal to or larger than a predetermined value acts on the nut attaching-detaching unit or the cutting unit.

A carrier tray includes a housing, an ingot accommodating recess that accommodates a semiconductor ingot, and a wafer accommodating recess that accommodates a wafer. The housing has an upper wall, a lower wall, a pair of side walls connecting the upper wall and the lower wall to each other, and a tunnel defined by the upper wall, the lower wall, and the pair of side walls. A plurality of levers each of which has a point of application projecting from a bottom surface of the ingot accommodating recess, a point of action projecting from a side surface of the ingot accommodating recess, and a fulcrum formed between the point of application and the point of action are each attached to the housing so as to be rotatable around the fulcrum.

A tape is stuck to the front surface of a workpiece in such a manner that the direction in which the stretch rate becomes the lowest when a predetermined force is applied to the tape is non-parallel to each of multiple planned dividing lines extending in a lattice manner. In this case, each of the multiple planned dividing lines does not extend along the direction perpendicular to this direction. This can reduce the ratio of the region to which the tape does not stick in the front surface of the workpiece in the vicinity of the boundary between each of the multiple planned dividing lines and a region in which a device is formed and suppress deterioration of the processing quality when the workpiece is divided from the back surface side by a cutting blade.

The present invention provides an ASC process automation device including: a loading part into which an ingot having been subjected to a wire sawing is input; a kerosene cleaning part for cleaning the ingot with kerosene; a precleaning part for precleaning the ingot; a main cleaning part for cleaning the ingot multiple times; a wafer peeling part for peeling the ingot to produce multiple wafers; and a transport unit for moving the ingot linearly and upward/downward while proceeding to the kerosene cleaning part, the precleaning part, the main cleaning part, and the wafer peeling part.

A processing apparatus includes a chuck table having a holding surface for holding a workpiece thereon, and a processing unit. The processing unit includes a spindle, a wheel mount coupled to an end of the spindle and facing the holding surface, a first tool detachably mounted on a mount surface of the wheel mount, the first tool having a first diameter, a second tool mount nonrotatably and axially movably mounted on the spindle over a rear surface of the wheel mount which is opposite the mount surface, the second tool mount having a storage region for the wheel mount and the first tool, a second tool mount member surrounding the storage region and having an inside diameter larger than the first diameter, and a second tool detachably mounted on the second tool mount and having an inside diameter larger than the first diameter.

A wire sawing apparatus of one embodiment comprises: a wire for cutting an ingot; an ingot conveyor unit for conveying the ingot to the wire; a nozzle for supplying slurry to the wire; and a dispersed slurry blocking unit disposed above the ingot sawed by the wire, so as to absorb at least a part of the slurry dispersed from the lateral sides of the ingot cut by the wire.

A wafer has a device area on one side with a plurality of devices partitioned by a plurality of division lines. Either side of the wafer is attached to an adhesive tape supported by a first annular frame. A modified region is formed in the wafer along the division lines by a laser. The wafer is placed on a support member whose outer diameter is smaller than an inner diameter of the first annular frame. After applying the laser beam, the adhesive tape is expanded thereby dividing the wafer along the division lines. A second annular frame is attached to a portion of the expanded adhesive tape. An inner diameter of the second annular frame is smaller than the outer diameter of the support member and smaller than the inner diameter of the first annular frame.

A synthetic quartz glass substrate is machined by bringing a surface of the synthetic quartz glass substrate as the workpiece into contact with and superposing it on a surface of a protective member made of synthetic quartz glass to effect optical contact bonding of the workpiece and the protective member, and passing a cutting tool through the optical contact bonding surfaces. This machining process is able to effectively prevent the generation of microdefects at the cutting tool entry site and extraction site during a cutting operation. Moreover, a fixing agent is not used to join the workpiece and the protective member, and so productivity is high because there is no need for the application and later removal of a fixing agent.

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.