Polishing apparatus and polishing method

A polishing apparatus for polishing a workpiece, the polishing apparatus comprising:

• a chuck table configured to hold the workpiece;
• a polishing unit including a rotatable polishing pad configured to polish the workpiece held by the chuck table;
• a moving mechanism configured to move the chuck table to a loading and unloading region for loading and unloading the workpiece onto and from the chuck table and a polishing region for polishing the workpiece by the polishing unit;
• a raising and lowering mechanism configured to bring the polishing pad into contact with the workpiece held by the chuck table or separate the polishing pad from the workpiece by raising or lowering the polishing unit;
• and
• a shaping unit configured to shape the polishing pad,
• the shaping unit being configured to come into contact with a polishing surface of the polishing pad and shape the polishing surface into a desired shape.