Patent ID: 8021963

Claim:
A method of treating a wafer provided with a plurality of devices on the face side, said method comprising: providing a plurality of said devices on the face side of said wafer; adhering a protective tape to the face side of said wafer; positioning said wafer upon a chuck table, face side down, such that the back side of the wafer is exposed; a denatured layer forming step of irradiating said wafer from the back side with a laser beam having such a wavelength as to permit transmission of said laser beam through said wafer, while adjusting a converging point of said laser beam to a predetermined depth from said back side, so as to form a denatured layer between the face side and the back side of said wafer; a separating step of separating said wafer into a back-side wafer on the back side relative to said denatured layer and a face-side wafer on the face side relative to said denatured layer; and a finishing step of removing said denatured layer remaining in said face-side wafer so as to finish said face-side wafer to a predetermined thickness; wherein said separating step results in said face-side wafer having a plurality of the devices formed on the face side thereof, and said back-side wafer with no devices formed thereon, and wherein said back-side wafer is recycled.