Patent ID: 7455095

Claim:
An apparatus for separating a protective tape from a semiconductor wafer with the protective tape held, from its back side, by a ring-shaped frame via a supporting adhesive tape, the apparatus comprising: holding means for mounting and holding thereon the semiconductor wafer held by the ring-shaped frame; separative adhesive tape supplying means for supplying a separative adhesive tape toward the semiconductor wafer held by the holding means; separating means for joining the separative adhesive tape to the surface of the protective tape and integrally separating the separative adhesive tape and the protective tape from the surface of the semiconductor wafer by horizontally moving the holding means on which the semiconductor wafer is mounted and held and a joining member for pressing a non-adhesion surface of the separative adhesive tape relative to each other; dropping means for dropping a liquid material onto an adhesion surface of the supporting adhesive tape on a joining start end side of the separative adhesive tape before the separative adhesive tape is joined; and tape collecting means for collecting the protective tape integrated with the separated separative adhesive tape.