Patent ID: 7849900

Claim:
An apparatus for joining a separating adhesive tape or the like while pressing it from its non-adhesive face side with a joining member onto a protective tape joined to a surface of a semiconductor wafer held on a ring frame through a supporting adhesive tape, and separating the separating adhesive tape or the like, thereby separating the protective tape together with the separating adhesive tape or the like from the surface of the semiconductor wafer, the apparatus comprising: an alignment stage to bring the semiconductor wafer into alignment by an orientation flat or a notch; a separation table on and by which a mount frame, in which the semiconductor wafer with the protective tape is supported on the ring frame through the supporting adhesive tape, is mounted and held horizontally; a separating adhesive tape or the like supplying mechanism for supplying the strip type of separating adhesive tape or the like toward the joining member; an ascending/descending mechanism for relatively moving the joining member, around and to which the separating adhesive tape or the like is wound and supplied, upward/downward with respect to the separation table; a driving mechanism for relatively and horizontally moving the separation table and the joining member; a sensor for detecting a front end edge of the protective tape in a non-contact manner by emitting a laser light beam from ahead of a separation direction of the protective tape in conjunction with a separating operation to horizontally move either the separation table or the joining member in the separation direction of the protective tape and receiving a reflected light from a surface of the moving protective tape; a controlling unit for controlling the ascending/descending mechanism so as to stop the horizontal movement at a time point when a joining operating portion of the joining member has reached a position directly above the front end edge of the protective tape and to relatively move the joining member close to the separation table to press the separating adhesive tape or the like wound around the joining member against the protective tape on the basis of a detection result of the sensor and for controlling driving of the driving mechanism so as to start the relative movement of the separation table and the joining member again from the stop position as a starting point to simultaneously separate the separating adhesive tape or the like onto the protective tape and separate the separating adhesive tape; and a tape collecting unit for collecting the protective tape integral with the separated separating adhesive tape or the like.