Disco Corporation

Sakae Matsuzaki

Kenji Furuta

Hiroyuki Takahashi

Junichi Arami

Takatoshi Masuda

Ken Togashi

Takehiko Senoo

Yu Yoshino

Noriko Ito

Toshihiro Aida

Tomoya Biro

Yuriko Sato

Nozomi Maemoto

A support base supports a plate-shaped workpiece. The support base includes a flat plate-shaped box member having a support face for supporting a workpiece and a placement face that is a face on the opposite side to the support face and is placed on a holding face of a chuck table, a temperature measurement unit accommodated in the box member, and a battery accommodated in the box member and serving as a power supply for the temperature measurement unit. The temperature measurement unit includes a temperature measuring instrument that measures a temperature at the support face, and a recording unit that records the temperature measured by the temperature measuring instrument.

Support base

A method of manufacturing device chips includes the steps of placing a workpiece on a table with a sheet of an insulating material being interposed between the table and the workpiece, attracting the sheet to the workpiece under electrostatic forces by applying a voltage between electrodes in the table to polarize the workpiece and the sheet, unloading the workpiece with the sheet attracted thereto from the table, processing the workpiece with the sheet attracted thereto to divide the workpiece into a plurality of device chips that correspond respectively to devices, and peeling off the device chips from the sheet by bringing an electrically conductive probe into contact with one, at a time, of areas of the sheet that correspond respectively to the device chips and applying a voltage to the probe thereby to release the sheet from the device chips that have attracted the sheet.

Method of manufacturing device chips and pick up apparatus

An electrostatic chuck table for holding a workpiece includes: a plate-shaped base transmittable with respect to a laser beam having a predetermined wavelength allowing the laser beam to be transmitted through the workpiece, the plate-shaped base having a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface; an electrostatic attraction electrode assembly transmittable with respect to the laser beam having the predetermined wavelength, the electrostatic attraction electrode assembly being formed on the first surface of the base; and a resin layer transmittable with respect to the laser beam having the predetermined wavelength, the resin layer covering the electrode assembly and providing a holding surface for holding the workpiece thereon. The electrostatic chuck table is used in forming a modified layer within the workpiece held on the holding surface with the laser beam that is applied to the workpiece from the side of the second surface of the base.

Electrostatic chuck table

An electrostatic chuck table includes a plate-shaped base portion capable of transmitting a laser beam to be applied to a workpiece and an electrostatic attraction electrode portion capable of transmitting the laser beam. The laser beam has a transmission wavelength to the workpiece. The base portion has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface. The electrode portion is formed on the first surface of the base portion. A method for using the electrostatic chuck table includes a workpiece holding step of applying a voltage to the electrode portion formed on the first surface to thereby electrostatically hold the workpiece on the second surface, and a modified layer forming step of applying the laser beam through the first surface to a predetermined position inside the workpiece held on the second surface to thereby form a modified layer inside the workpiece.

Electrostatic chuck table using method

A wafer processing method divides a wafer into individual devices along crossing streets formed on the front side of the wafer. The wafer has a substrate and a functional layer formed on the front side of the substrate. The individual devices are formed from the functional layer and are partitioned by the streets. A laser beam is applied along the streets from the front side of the functional layer to thereby remove the functional layer along the streets. A resist film is formed on the front side of the functional layer except on each street. The substrate of the wafer is plasma-etched along each street where the functional layer is absent to the depth corresponding to the finished thickness of each device, thereby forming a division groove along each street and also etching off a modified layer formed on the opposite sides of each street.

Wafer processing method

A wafer processing method including a mask forming step of forming a mask for covering a region corresponding to each device on a functional layer formed on the front side of a substrate constituting a wafer, a groove forming step of spraying a fluid containing abrasive grains against the front side of the wafer to thereby form a groove for dividing the functional layer along each street, and an etching step of performing dry etching from the front side of the wafer to thereby form an etched groove along each street. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent that the functional layer may be separated to cause damage to each device. Furthermore, a wide area of the wafer can be processed at a time, so that the productivity can be improved.

A dividing method for a wafer includes a step of irradiating a laser beam along streets to form modified regions in an inside of a wafer, a step of dividing the wafer into individual chips beginning with starting points given by the modified regions, a step of placing a processing chamber in which the wafer is charged to a vacuum state and fill the processing chamber with inert gas, and a step of introducing etching gas into the processing chamber filled with the inert gas to etch side faces of the chips.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Sakae Matsuzaki