Disco Corporation

Hayato Iga

Kazuya Hirata

Shunichiro Hirosawa

Kentaro Iizuka

Shin Tabata

Yuichi Kitazumi

Mato Hattori

KwangYoung Jung

Hideo Iwata

Hironobu Ozawa

A processing apparatus includes a chuck table for holding a bonded wafer thereon, a grinding unit for grinding the bonded wafer, a cleaning unit for cleaning the bonded wafer, and a processing unit for removing a beveled portion of an outer circumferential end portion of the bonded wafer before the grinding unit grinds the bonded wafer. The processing unit includes a support for supporting the bonded wafer with a surface thereof being exposed and a laser beam applying unit for emitting a laser beam having a wavelength transmittable through the wafer. The laser beam applying unit applies the laser beam to the wafer supported on the support, from the exposed surface, while positioning a focused spot thereof within the outer circumferential excessive region of the wafer, to form a modified layer in the wafer along which to remove the beveled portion from the wafer.

Wafer processing apparatus

An image capturing unit includes a camera, an assembled lens that is connected to the camera and that magnifies a region to be imaged, a cover lens that covers an objective lens of the assembled lens, a fluid spray nozzle that sprays a fluid including water to the cover lens, a fluid removing nozzle that blows air to the cover lens to remove the fluid deposited on the cover lens, and a cutting water removing nozzle that blows air to a wafer positioned at a position directly under the cover lens, to remove cutting water stagnating on an upper surface of the wafer.

Cutting apparatus

A substrate manufacturing method of manufacturing a substrate from a workpiece is disclosed. A laser beam is first split and condensed to form a plurality of focal points aligned side by side along a first direction, and with the focal points positioned inside the workpiece, the focal points and the workpiece are moved relative to each other along a second direction orthogonal to the first direction such that a separation layer is formed. A region of the focal points and the workpiece are then moved relative to each other along the first direction. These relative movements are alternately and repeatedly performed. The splitting and condensation of the laser beam are performed such that a volume expansion of the workpiece associated with the formation of the modified regions is relatively small in the vicinity of at least one focal point formed on a center side.

Substrate manufacturing method

A manufacturing method of a single crystal silicon substrate includes a peeling layer forming step of forming, inside a workpiece, peeling layers that include modified portions and cracks propagating from the modified portions, and a separation step of separating the substrate from the workpiece using the peeling layers as starting points. The peeling layer forming step has a first processing step of forming some of the modified portions in first regions that each extend along a first direction and are separated from one another in a second direction orthogonal to the first direction, and a second processing step of forming the remaining part of the modified portions and the cracks in second regions that each extend along the first direction and that are separated from one another in the second direction.

Manufacturing method of single crystal silicon substrate

A first peel-off layer extending along a side surface of a truncated cone that has a first bottom surface positioned near a face side of a wafer and a second bottom surface positioned within the wafer and smaller in diameter than the first bottom surface, and a second peel-off layer extending along the second bottom surface of the truncated cone are formed in the wafer. Then, external forces are exerted on the wafer thicknesswise of the wafer, thereby dividing the wafer along the first peel-off layer and the second peel-off layer that function as division initiating points.

Method of processing wafer

A monocrystalline silicon wafer fabricated such that a particular crystal plane, e.g., a crystal plane (100), included in crystal planes {100} is exposed on each of face and reverse sides of the monocrystalline silicon wafer is irradiated with a laser beam along a first direction parallel to the particular crystal plane and inclined to a particular crystal orientation, e.g., a crystal orientation [010], included in crystal orientations <100> at an angle of 5° or less, thereby forming a peel-off layer that functions as separation initiating points between a part of the monocrystalline silicon wafer that belongs to the face side thereof and a part of the monocrystalline silicon wafer that belongs to the reverse side thereof.

Method of processing monocrystalline silicon wafer

A processing method for processing a single-crystal silicon wafer that has a first surface and a second surface formed in such a manner that a specific crystal plane included in a crystal plane {100} is exposed in each of the first and second surfaces and has devices formed in the respective regions marked out by planned dividing lines in the first surface. The method includes forming dividing origins along each planned dividing line, forming a separation layer along the crystal plane of the second surface through relatively moving a focal point and the wafer along a first direction that is parallel to the crystal plane of the second surface and in which an acute angle formed between the first direction and the crystal orientation <100> is equal to or smaller than 5°, and separating the wafer into a first-surface-side wafer including devices and a second-surface-side wafer including no devices.

Processing method

A peel-off layer is finally formed in an area, i.e., a first inner area or a second inner area, in a workpiece that is closer to the center of the workpiece among a plurality of areas. The workpiece has a cylindrical shape, so that the second inner area is wider than the other areas, e.g., the second outer area, in which the peel-off layers are formed. Consequently, when the peel-off layer is finally formed in the second inner area, the internal stresses in the workpiece are dispersed in a wider range than when the peel-off layer is finally formed in the second outer area. Thus, large cracks thicknesswise of the workpiece are prevented from being developed from modified regions contained in the peel-off layer. Therefore, the amount of workpiece material to be disposed of in subsequent steps is reduced, resulting in increased manufacturing productivity.

Method of manufacturing substrate

After peel-off layers have been formed in a workpiece of monocrystalline silicon such as an ingot, a bare wafer, or a device wafer with use of a laser beam having a wavelength transmittable through monocrystalline silicon, a substrate is separated from the workpiece along the peel-off layers acting as separation initiating points. The process results in increased productivity for the manufacture of substrates, compared with a process of manufacturing substrates from a workpiece with use of a wire saw.

Method of manufacturing monocrystalline silicon substrate

After separation layers are formed inside a single-crystal silicon ingot, a single-crystal silicon substrate is split off from the single-crystal silicon ingot with use of these separation layers as the point of origin. This can improve the productivity of the single-crystal silicon substrate compared with the case of manufacturing the single-crystal silicon substrate from the single-crystal silicon ingot by a wire saw.

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Tokyo, Japan

Hayato Iga