Patent ID: 8187055

Claim:
A polishing apparatus for polishing a periphery of a substrate, said polishing apparatus comprising: a rotary holding mechanism configured to hold the substrate horizontally and rotate the substrate; a plurality of polishing head assemblies provided around said rotary holding mechanism; a plurality of tape supplying and recovering mechanisms configured to supply polishing tapes to said plurality of polishing head assemblies and recover the polishing tapes from said plurality of polishing head assemblies; a plurality of moving mechanisms configured to move said plurality of polishing head assemblies in radial directions of the substrate held by said rotary holding mechanism; a supply nozzle configured to supply a liquid onto the substrate held by said rotary holding mechanism; and an operation controller for controlling operations of said plurality of polishing head assemblies, wherein each of said plurality of polishing head assemblies includes a polishing head configured to press the polishing tape against the periphery of the substrate, and a tilt mechanism configured to rotate said polishing head about an axis parallel to a tangent line of the substrate, and said operation controller is operable to move at least one of said polishing heads, which is not performing polishing, in a radial direction of the substrate by at least one of said moving mechanisms so as to keep said at least one of said polishing heads at a distance away from the substrate during supply of the liquid to the rotating substrate such that the liquid impinging on said at least one of said polishing heads does not bounce back to the substrate.