Wafer machining apparatus

A wafer machining apparatus for dividing a wafer, in which a plurality of devices are partitioned by streets formed on a face of the wafer, into individual devices, comprising:

• grinding means for grinding a back of the wafer having a protective member affixed to the face of the wafer to form the wafer in a predetermined thickness;
• resist film coating means for passing a radiation from a back side to a face side of the wafer to recognize the streets, and coating a resist film onto regions of the back of the wafer which are other than street-corresponding regions corresponding to the streets;
• and
• plasma etching means for plasmatizing a fluorine-based stable gas, and supplying the plasmatized gas to the back side of the wafer to etch away the street-corresponding regions in a range from the back to the face of the wafer, thereby dividing the wafer into individual devices, and
• wherein the grinding means at least comprises a chuck table for sucking and holding the wafer, a grinding portion for grinding the back of the wafer held on the chuck table, and a cleaning portion for cleaning the ground wafer, and
• the resist film coating means at least comprises a holding table for holding the wafer, an infrared imaging portion for imaging the wafer held on the holding table from the back side to recognize the streets formed on the face side, a resist jetting portion for jetting a liquid resist toward the regions of the back of the wafer which are other than the street-corresponding regions, and a heating portion for heating the jetted liquid resist to solidify the jetted liquid resist.