Patent ID: 7887665

Claim:
An expanding method for expanding an adhesive sheet with respect to a plate-like article stuck to said adhesive sheet, mounted to a ring-shaped frame through said adhesive sheet, and diced into individual chips by a dicing device, after the dicing to increase spacings between said individual chips, comprising: a conveying step of conveying said plate-like article together with a chuck stage of said dicing device to a different area in said dicing device without being detached from said chuck stage after the dicing of said plate-like article; an expanding step of expanding said adhesive sheet so as to produce spacings between individual chips with said plate-like article being mounted to said frame in a wafer spreader of an expansion device; and an expansion maintaining step of maintaining an expanded state of said adhesive sheet with the spacings between individual chips unchanged and with said plate-like article remaining mounted to said frame after said expanding step by nipping or pinching a loose part of the expanded adhesive sheet formed near an outer periphery of the adhesive sheet by the expansion of the adhesive sheet to form a looped annular protrusion surrounding the chips and by nipping and securing facing sides of the annular protrusion into a closed loop, and conveying said plate-like article from the wafer spreader of said expansion device together with said frame with the increased spacings between said chips being maintained unchanged.