Disco Corporation

Keiji Nomaru

Taiki Sawabe

Hiroshi Morikazu

Yuji Hadano

Nobuyuki Kimura

Masatoshi Nayuki

Satoshi Kobayashi

Yutaka Kobayashi

Yasuomi Kaneuchi

Yosuke Watanabe

Yusaku Ito

Jun Abatake

Kouichi Nehashi

Koichi Katayama

Kazuma Sekiya

Masaru Nakamura

Koji Yamaguchi

Kenji Furuta

Hitoshi Hoshino

Yoko Nishino

Kohei Matsumoto

Naotoshi Kirihara

Kenji Asano

Koji Toyama

Ken Togashi

Shuichiro Tsukiji

Yuki Ikku

Kenya Kai

Yu Kudo

Joel Koerwer

Nobumori Ogoshi

Kentaro Shiraga

Yudai Hata

Goro Watanabe

Koichi Mitani

Taizo Kise

Tatsuya Inaoka

Arata Osaki

Akimasa Nakamoto

A measuring instrument includes a light source, a scanning mirror configured to position the light emitted by the light source at coordinates specified by an X-coordinate and a Y-coordinate on a plate-shaped workpiece held on a chuck table, a diffusing film onto which reflected light is projected, the reflected light forming a spectral interference waveform by being reflected from a top surface and an undersurface of the plate-shaped workpiece held on the chuck table, a light detector configured to detect light intensities corresponding to wavelengths of the spectral interference waveform projected onto the diffusing film, a memory configured to store, for each coordinate, the light intensities corresponding to the wavelengths and being detected by the light detector, and a calculating section configured to calculate a thickness at each coordinate by performing a Fourier transform of the light intensities corresponding to the wavelengths and being stored in the memory.

Thickness measuring apparatus

A pulse duration measuring apparatus includes a polarizing beam splitter for splitting a pulsed laser beam into a first laser beam and a second laser beam, a first mirror for reflecting the first laser beam traveling toward the polarizing beam splitter, a second mirror for reflecting the second laser beam traveling toward the polarizing beam splitter, a first quarter wavelength plate disposed between the polarizing beam splitter and the first mirror, a second quarter wavelength plate disposed between the polarizing beam splitter and the second mirror, an optical path length changing unit for moving the first mirror or the second mirror to change the length of the respective optical paths, a nonlinear crystal body for allowing a combined laser beam to pass therethrough, and a photodetector for measuring an optical intensity of the combined laser beam that has passed through the nonlinear crystal body.

Pulse duration measuring apparatus

A polishing apparatus includes a polishing unit that rotatably supports a polishing pad for polishing a wafer held on a holding surface of a chuck table and that has a spindle formed with a through-hole extending from one end of the spindle to the other end of the spindle in an axis of the spindle. A thickness measuring unit is disposed at one end of the through-hole of the spindle that measures a thickness of the wafer. A controller obtains information regarding the thickness of the wafer measured by the thickness measuring unit at a position defined by a variation in a distance between a rotational center of the rotating wafer fed by a parallel feeding mechanism, a center of the other end of the through-hole facing the wafer, and a rotational angle of the chuck table, and forms mapping data regarding the thickness of the wafer.

Polishing apparatus with thickness measuring unit

A measuring unit of a measuring apparatus includes a light source that emits light in a predetermined wavelength region, a condenser lens that applies the light emitted by the light source, to a plate-shaped workpiece held by a chuck table, a collimating lens that forms return light reflected by the plate-shaped workpiece into parallel light, a transmission filter that transmits interference light of the return light formed into the parallel light, a sensor that has coordinates for receiving the interference light transmitted through the transmission filter and detecting light intensity, and a controller that determines a coordinate position at which the light intensity detected by the sensor is high, as the thickness or height of the plate-shaped workpiece.

Measuring apparatus

A laser processing method includes a scattered-light blocking film stacking step of stacking a scattered-light blocking film that blocks scattered light of a laser beam on an upper surface side of a wafer, a holding step of holding a lower surface side of the wafer by a chuck table, a laser processing step of forming a layer of water on the upper surface side of the wafer and irradiating a region to be processed in the wafer with the laser beam while moving the chuck table and a laser beam irradiation unit relatively, and a scattered-light blocking film removal step of removing the scattered-light blocking film from the wafer for which the laser processing step has ended.

Laser processing method

A cutting machine includes a monitoring unit that monitors a cutting edge of a cutting blade. The monitoring unit includes an imaging unit that images the cutting edge of the cutting blade, a pulse light source that emits a pulse light to illuminate an imaging zone imaged by the imaging unit, and a camera that captures an image outputted from the imaging unit. The imaging unit includes a first imaging unit that images one side surface of the cutting edge of the cutting blade, a second imaging unit that images an opposite side surface of the cutting edge, and a third imaging unit that images an outer peripheral edge portion of the cutting edge.

Cutting machine

A wafer producing method for producing a wafer from a semiconductor ingot includes a thermal stress wave generating step of applying a pulsed laser beam having a wavelength that is absorbable by the semiconductor ingot to the semiconductor ingot held on the chuck table to generate a thermal stress wave and a fracture layer forming step of applying a pulsed laser beam having a wavelength that is transmittable through the semiconductor ingot to the semiconductor ingot in synchronism with a time during which the thermal stress wave reaches a position corresponding to a thickness of a wafer to be produced from the semiconductor ingot, causing the pulsed laser beam whose wavelength is transmittable through the semiconductor ingot to be absorbed in a region where a band gap is reduced by a tensile stress of the thermal stress wave.

Wafer producing method and wafer producing apparatus

A detection mechanism of a detection device includes a pulsed laser oscillator that emits a pulsed laser beam; an fθ lens facing a workpiece held by a chuck table; a thermal excitation section that applies the pulsed laser beam emitted from the pulsed laser oscillator to an upper surface of a wafer through the fθ lens and generates an ultrasonic wave propagated in a spherical form by thermal excitation; and an image forming section that forms an image by capturing a reflected laser beam influenced by vibration of the ultrasonic wave generated by the thermal excitation section, propagated through the inside of the workpiece, reflected by a lower surface of the workpiece, and returned to the upper surface of the workpiece, by an aperture synthesis method.

Detection device

A wafer forming method includes a modified layer forming step of applying a laser beam of such a wavelength as to be transmitted through an ingot to the ingot with a focal point of the laser beam positioned inside from a side surface at a position corresponding to the thickness of a wafer to be formed, to form a modified layer over the whole circumference of the side surface, a peeling-off layer forming step of exerting an external force from an upper surface of the ingot and concentrating a stress on a crack extending from the modified layer to the inside, to cause the crack to develop from the side surface side toward the inside and form a peeling-off layer, and a wafer forming step of peeling off a wafer to be formed, from the ingot, with the peeling-off layer as a start point, to form the wafer.

Wafer forming method

A laser beam applying unit of a laser processing apparatus includes a beam splitter disposed on a first optical path connecting a laser oscillator and a condenser, a wide band light source disposed on a second optical path branched by the beam splitter, a spectroscope that is disposed between the wide band light source and the beam splitter and that branches the laser beam from the second optical path to a third optical path, and a Z position detection unit that is disposed on the third optical path branched by the spectroscope and that detects the position in a Z-axis direction of a workpiece according to an intensity of light corresponding to the wavelength of return light that is generated when the light of the wide band light source is condensed by the condenser and is reflected by the workpiece held by a chuck table.

Laser processing apparatus

A measuring apparatus for measuring positional relation between a chuck table for holding a workpiece thereon and a processing tool for processing the workpiece held on the chuck table. The measuring apparatus includes a broadband light source, a mirror for reflecting light emitted from the broadband light source to travel toward the processing tool, a chromatic aberration condensing lens disposed between the broadband light source and the mirror or between the mirror and the processing tool, a light branching unit branching reflected light from the processing tool that has been reflected by the mirror and traveled back through the chromatic aberration condensing lens, and a position detecting unit detecting the position of the processing tool on the basis of intensity of the reflected light that corresponds to a wavelength of the reflected light branched by the light branching unit.

Measuring apparatus for measuring positional relation between a chuck table and a processing tool

A measuring apparatus includes a holding table that holds a measurement-target object and a measuring unit that measures a height or a thickness of the measurement-target object held by the holding table. The measuring unit includes a light source unit, an optical fiber that guides light emitted by the light source unit, and a light collector that focuses the light guided by the optical fiber on the measurement-target object held by the holding table. The light source unit includes an excitation light source, a fluorescent body that emits fluorescence when receiving excitation light emitted by the excitation light source, and a collecting lens that focuses the excitation light emitted by the excitation light source on the fluorescent body.

Measuring apparatus that measures height position or thickness of measurement-target object

A thickness measuring apparatus that measures a thickness of a workpiece held by a chuck table. The thickness measuring apparatus includes plural image sensors that detect intensity of light spectrally split on each wavelength basis by plural diffraction gratings and generate a spectral interference waveform and a thickness output unit that outputs thickness information from the spectral interference waveform generated by the plural image sensors. The thickness output unit includes a reference waveform recording section in which spectral interference waveforms corresponding to plural thicknesses are recorded as reference waveforms and a thickness deciding section that compares plural spectral interference waveforms generated by the plural image sensors with the reference waveforms recorded in the reference waveform recording section and decides the thickness corresponding to each spectral interference waveform from the reference waveform that corresponds to the spectral interference waveform in the waveform shape.

A laser beam irradiation unit of a laser processing apparatus includes a first pulsed laser oscillator that oscillates a pulsed laser having a wavelength of 9 to 11 &#x3bc;m and a pulse width of 5 ns or less, a COamplifier that amplifies a pulsed laser beam emitted from the first pulsed laser oscillator, and a condenser that focuses the pulsed laser beam amplified by the COamplifier on a workpiece held on the chuck table.

A mechanism for detecting the inside of a workpiece includes a wavelength delaying unit for outputting each pulse of a pulsed laser beam emitted from a laser oscillator with time differences imparted to respective wavelengths, and a ring generating unit for generating a ring-shaped pulsed laser beam from the pulsed laser beam with the time differences imparted to the respective wavelengths and diffracting the ring-shaped pulsed laser beam into ring-shaped laser beams ranging from small to large at the respective wavelengths. When the ring-shaped laser beams with the time differences imparted to the respective wavelengths are applied to the workpiece, they produce an interference wave of ultrasonic waves in the workpiece, and vibrations are produced at a position where the interference wave of the ultrasonic waves is converged. A laser beam is applied to an upper surface of the workpiece at a position aligned with the center of the vibrations.

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Tokyo, Japan

Keiji Nomaru