Pellet bonding apparatus

A pellet bonding apparatus comprising a wafer stage capable of installation thereon via a sheet expander of a wafer ring unit having a sheet with wafer division pellets applied thereto, and a pellet removal/transfer mechanism for removing pellets one by one from the wafer ring unit and transferring each removed unit,

• said sheet expander including:
• an expander ring formed on an expander base provided on said wafer stage, the expander ring having an end capable of supporting the sheet, the expander ring end having a fluid outlet;
• a press ring disposed outside the expander ring, the press ring being capable of relative axial movement to said expander ring to cause the sheet supported on the end of the expander ring to be expanded to form a gap between adjacent ones of the pellets;
• and
• a fluid supply system capable of forming a fluid layer between the sheet and the end of the expander ring by supplying fluid to the fluid outlet.

A pellet bonding apparatus comprising:

• a wafer stage capable of installation thereon via a sheet expander of a wafer ring unit having a sheet with wafer division pellets applied thereto;
• a pellet removal/transfer mechanism for removing pellets one by one from the pellet group of the wafer ring unit at a pellet removal position and transferring each removed pellet;
• a pellet position correcting mechanism for setting each removed pellet on a rotary table and correcting the position of the pellet;
• and
• a bonding mechanism for removing each pellet having been position corrected by said pellet position correcting mechanism and bonding the removed pellet to a lead frame;
• said wafer stage permitting rotation of the wafer ring unit through each angle corresponding to each of a plurality of areas, which the pellet group of the wafer ring unit is divided into;
• said pellet position correcting mechanism being capable of correcting pellet position by causing rotation of the rotary table through a predetermined angle in either forward or reverse direction independently of the rotation of the wafer ring unit such that each pellet has the same orientation when removed by said bonding mechanism;
• said sheet expander including:
• an expander ring formed on an expander base provided on said wafer stage, the expander ring having an end capable of supporting the sheet, the expander ring end having a fluid outlet;
• a press ring disposed outside the expander ring, the press ring being capable of relative axial movement to said expander ring to cause the sheet supported on the end of the expander ring to be expanded to form a gap between adjacent ones of the pellets;
• and
• a fluid supply system capable of forming a fluid layer between the sheet and the end of the expander ring by supplying fluid to the fluid outlet.