Abstract: A wafer is mounted upon a substrate and separated into individual chips which are retained on the substrate. The separated wafer and substrate are then placed on a demounting device with a passageway such that the chips on a first portion of the wafer lie over the passageway while chips on a second portion of the wafer do not. When the separated wafer is subsequently subjected to a demounting force, the chips will demount from the substrate with the chips on the first portion falling into a catch bin located in the passageway while chips on the second portion are discarded. Additional demounting devices can be provided within the passageway, if further sorting of the chips on the first portion of the separated wafer is desired.

Abstract: To eliminate the manual handling of individual articles associated with loading and unloading conventional treating apparatus, a plurality of articles are simultaneously treated in the carriers which are used for batch handling prior to and subsequent to the treating operation. In a disclosed embodiment, wafer-shaped articles are held in mutually spaced substantially parallel relationship in a plurality of slots in a first carrier having an open face through which the wafers can be inserted and removed. The open face of the first carrier is abutted to the open face of an empty second carrier having at least a corresponding plurality of slots, such that the slots of the first carrier are aligned with the slots of the second carrier. The abutted carriers, with the wafers contained therein, are submersed in a treating medium and rotated about an axis running through the abutted faces of the carriers.