Wafer manufacturing apparatus
AssigneeDisco Corporation
InventorsRyohei Yamamoto, Kazuya Hirata
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A wafer manufacturing apparatus includes an ingot grinding unit for grinding an upper surface of an ingot to planarize the upper surface of the ingot, a laser applying unit for forming peel-off layers in the ingot at a depth therein, which corresponds to the thickness of a wafer to be produced from the ingot, from the upper surface of the ingot, a wafer peeling unit for holding the upper surface of the ingot and peeling off a wafer from the ingot at the peel-off layers, a tray having an ingot support portion and a wafer support portion, and a belt conveyor unit for delivering the ingot supported on the tray between the ingot grinding unit, the laser applying unit, and the wafer peeling unit.
Claims5
A wafer manufacturing method comprising:
- grinding an upper surface of an ingot with a grinding means;
- after grinding the upper surface of the ingot with the grinding means, inspecting whether defects exist on the upper surface of the ingot;
- after inspecting whether defects exist on the upper surface of the ingot, applying a laser beam having a wavelength transmittable through the ingot while positioning a focused spot of the laser beam at a depth in the ingot, the depth corresponding to the thickness of the wafer to be produced from the ingot, from the upper surface of the ingot, thereby forming peel-off layers in the ingot;
- after applying the laser beam and forming the peel-off layers, peeling an ingot portion as the wafer from the ingot at the peel-off layers.
A wafer manufacturing method comprising:
- grinding an upper surface of an ingot with a grinding means;
- applying a laser beam having a wavelength transmittable through the ingot while positioning a focused spot of the laser beam at a depth in the ingot, the depth corresponding to the thickness of the wafer to be produced from the ingot, from the upper surface of the ingot, thereby forming peel-off layers in the ingot;
- after applying the laser beam and forming the peel-off layers, peeling an ingot portion as the wafer from the ingot at the peel-off layers.
- after peeling the ingot portion as the wafer, inspecting whether defects exist in the wafer peeled off from the ingot.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.