Disco Corporation

Kuraray Co., Ltd.

Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd.

Toshiyuki Yoshikawa

Senichi Ryo

Toshio Tsuchiya

Nobuyasu Kitahara

Yukinobu Ohura

Osamu Shinji

Toshitaka Kunisawa

Tomoyuki Hongo

Hirokazu Matsumoto

Yoshinori Kakinuma

Yoshinobu Saito

Noboru Takeda

Koichi Shigematsu

Satoshi Genda

Yukiyasu Masuda

Masanobu Takenaka

Kouzo Yasuda

Kenta Nakano

Kazuma Sekiya

Masaru Nakamura

Takashi Mori

Kenji Furuta

Ichiro Matsuzaki

Katsuya Fujisawa

Ryugo Oba

Yoshikuni Migiyama

Hironari Ohkubo

Naoki Ohmiya

Ikuo Onishi

Jonghyun Ryu

Takashi Uchiho

Takashi Sampei

Atsushi Kawakami

Yoshiki Mukoo

Rikuji Watanabe

Hiroshi Takanashi

Yuki Ikeda

Kozo Yasuda

Ryosuke Kurosawa

Hideyuki Kawaguchi

A processing apparatus includes a wafer carrying-out unit, a wafer table that supports a wafer carried out, a frame carrying-out unit, a frame table that supports an annular frame carried out, a tape sticking unit that sticks a tape to the annular frame, a tape-attached frame conveying unit, a tape pressure bonding unit that executes pressure bonding of the tape of a tape-attached frame to the back surface of the wafer, a frame unit carrying-out unit, and a reinforcing part removing unit that cuts and removes a ring-shaped reinforcing part from the wafer of a frame unit.

Processing apparatus

A processing method of a workpiece with a circular disc shape includes sticking a tape to one surface of the workpiece and integrating the workpiece and a frame through the tape, holding the workpiece by a holding unit with the interposition of the tape, and irradiating the other surface of the workpiece located on the opposite side to the one surface with a pulsed laser beam having such a wavelength as to be absorbed by the workpiece from the side of the other surface. In irradiating the laser beam, the other surface is annularly irradiated with the laser beam in the state in which the orientation of the laser beam is adjusted in such a manner that the laser beam has an angle of incidence formed due to inclination with respect to a normal to the other surface of the workpiece by a predetermined angle.

Processing method of workpiece

A processing apparatus includes a wafer conveying-out mechanism; a wafer table; a frame conveying-out mechanism; a frame table; a tape attaching mechanism that attaches a tape to a frame; a tape-attached frame conveying mechanism that conveys the tape-attached frame; a tape pressure bonding mechanism that pressure bonds the tape of the tape-attached frame to a back surface of a wafer; a frame unit conveying-out mechanism that conveys out a frame unit in which the tape of the tape-attached frame and the back surface of the wafer are pressure bonded; a reinforcement section removing mechanism that cuts and removes a ring-shaped reinforcement section from the wafer; a ringless unit conveying-out mechanism that conveys out a ringless unit from which the reinforcement section has been removed; and a frame cassette table on which a frame cassette accommodating the ringless unit is to be placed.

A method of processing a workpiece includes: a frame unit preparing step of preparing a frame unit including a tape affixed to an undersurface of the workpiece; a protective film forming step of forming a protective film on a top surface of the workpiece; a cutting step of cutting the workpiece by applying a laser beam; an interval expanding step of widening intervals between chips formed in the cutting step by expanding the tape outward in a radial direction; and an etching step of removing altered regions formed in the respective chips.

Workpiece processing method and device chip manufacturing method

A protective film applying apparatus includes a protective film forming and cleaning unit for forming a protective film on a surface of a wafer and cleaning the protective film away. A coverage state detector detects a coverage state of the protective film, and a controller determines whether or not the protective film has a film thickness falling within a predetermined range. If the controller decides that the thickness of the protective film does not fall in the predetermined range, the controller operates the protective film forming and cleaning unit to clean away the protective film, performs a pretreating process selected depending on the film thickness on the surface, and operates the protective film forming and cleaning unit to form a protective film again on the surface of the wafer.

Protective film applying apparatus and protective film applying method

Disclosed herein is a wafer processing method in which laser processing is carried out on a wafer along streets. The wafer processing method includes a step of holding the wafer by a chuck table, a protective film forming step of forming a water-soluble protective film on a surface of the wafer, a laser beam irradiating step of irradiating the wafer with a laser beam along the streets after the protective film forming step, a step of supplying a chemical having an amino group to the wafer, and a removing step of cleaning and removing a compound that is generated by the supplying of the chemical having an amino group and contains phosphorus.

Wafer processing method

Disclosed herein is a method of dividing rectangular plate-shaped workpieces into individual device chips including a detecting step wherein an annular frame to which a plurality of rectangular plate-shaped workpieces are stuck is held on a chuck table and the positions and angles of the projected dicing lines on each of the plate-shaped workpieces are detected, and a dividing step wherein a laser beam having a wavelength which is absorbable by the plate-shaped workpieces is applied from a laser beam applying unit to the plate-shaped workpieces while the chuck table and the laser beam applying unit are being relatively processing-fed and finely adjusted for each of the plate-shaped workpieces on the basis of the positions and angles detected in the detecting step, thereby dividing the plate-shaped workpieces into a plurality of device chips along the projected dicing lines.

Method of dividing plate-shaped workpieces

A wafer processing method includes a wafer holding step of holding a wafer having devices formed on the front side, a protective film forming step of forming a water-soluble protective film on the front side of the wafer, a laser beam applying step of applying a laser beam to the wafer along streets, a cleaning step of cleaning the wafer to then remove the protective film, and a foreign matter removing step of removing foreign matter from the wafer when a predetermined period of time has elapsed after cleaning. This period of time is set as a period of time until a phosphorus containing reaction product produced at a laser processed portion is evaporated to react with water in the air, thereby producing the foreign matter containing phosphorus on bumps formed on each device.

A protective film agent for laser dicing according to the present invention comprises a solution having, dissolved therein, a water-soluble resin and at least one laser light absorber selected from the group consisting of a water-soluble dye, a water-soluble coloring matter, and a water-soluble ultraviolet absorber. The protective film agent is coated on a surface of a wafer, which is to be processed, and is then dried to form a protective film. Laser dicing through the protective film produces chips from the wafer. As a result, deposition of debris can be effectively prevented on the entire face of the chips, including their peripheral edge portions.

Protective film agent for laser dicing and wafer processing method using the protective film agent

A method of detecting a condensing spot position in a laser beam processing apparatus, including: a detection position setting step of setting a plurality of Z-axis directional positions in a range from a starting point to an ending point of detection positions into which the condenser is positioned; a laser beam processed groove forming step of sequentially positioning the condenser into the detection positions in the range from the starting point to the ending point, performing a predetermined interval indexing feeding by operating indexing feeding means each time the detection position for the condenser is changed, and forming a laser beam processed groove of a predetermined length in the plate-shaped body at each of the detection positions for the condenser; and a laser beam processed groove imaging step of imaging the laser beam processed grooves formed in the plate-shaped body by imaging means.

Method of detecting condensing spot position in laser beam processing apparatus

A method of dividing a wafer having a plurality of areas defined by the plurality of streets formed in a lattice on the front surface, devices formed in the defined areas and an adhesive film for die bonding on the rear surface and put on a dicing tape affixed to an annular frame along the streets, the method comprising the steps of: forming a groove along the streets in the wafer by applying a first laser beam whose elliptic focal spot has a ratio of the long axis of the short axis of 15 to 20:1 along the streets formed on the wafer; and dividing the adhesive film along the grooves by applying a second laser beam whose elliptical focal spot has a ratio of the long axis to the short axis of 60 to 70:1 to the adhesive film through the grooves formed by the wafer dividing step.

Wafer dividing method

A method for producing many semiconductor chips, each having a semiconductor circuit disposed on the face thereof and a die bonding film stuck to the back thereof, from a semiconductor wafer in which many rectangular regions are defined on its face by streets arranged in a lattice pattern, and the semiconductor circuit is disposed in each of the rectangular regions. The method comprises: a groove formation step of forming grooves of a predetermined depth along the streets on the face of the semiconductor wafer; a protective film sticking step of sticking a protective film to the face of the semiconductor wafer, where the grooves have been formed; a division step of grinding the back of the semiconductor wafer to render the thickness of the semiconductor wafer equal to or smaller than the depth of the groove, thereby dividing the rectangular regions individually; a die bonding film/holding film sticking step of sticking a die bonding film and a holding film, in this order, to the ground back of the semiconductor wafer; a protective film peeling step of peeling the protective film from the face of the semiconductor wafer; a spacing increasing step of stretching the holding film to increase spacing between the individually divided rectangular regions; and a die bonding film cutting step of irradiating the die bonding film with a laser beam from the face side of the semiconductor wafer through the clearance between the rectangular regions to cut the die bonding film along the clearance between the rectangular regions.

Method for producing semiconductor chip

A semiconductor wafer treatment method for dividing an adhesive tape, which has been stuck to the entire back of a semiconductor wafer, along divided streets of the semiconductor wafer. Before division of the adhesive tape by application of laser beams, the state of the divided streets is detected, and laser beams are applied to the adhesive tape based on such detection.

Semiconductor wafer treatment method

A wafer laser processing method for forming a groove in a wafer having a protective film on the processing surface of a substrate along a predetermined processing line, comprising a first step for forming a first groove in the protective film along the dividing lines by applying a first pulse laser beam set to an output at which the protective film can be processed but the substrate can not be processed, to the protective film along the processing lines; and a second step for forming a second groove in the substrate along the first grooves by applying a second pulse laser beam set to an output at which the substrate can be processed, along the first grooves.

Wafer laser processing method

A backlight device for a liquid crystal display comprising a light diffuser, a light source disposed behind the light diffuser, and a reflector for reflecting light from the light source, in which a liquid crystal panel is disposed in front of the light diffuser and irradiated, from the back side, with the direct light from the light source and the light reflected by the reflector and diffused by and passed through the light diffuser. The light source is of a type which radiates UV-rays and heat along with visible light. The warp and yellowing of the diffuser are suppressed even if the quantity of UV-rays is increased with an increase in the quantity of light from the light source. In a direct-under type backlight device for a liquid crystal display employing the light diffuser, the color difference (&#x394;E) defined in JIS K 7105 after exposed for 500 hours to artificial light employed for artificial light source test defined in JIS h7350-2 is 2.0 or less, and saturated water absorption rate of the light diffuser is 0.9% or less.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Toshiyuki Yoshikawa