Abstract: Adhesion of particles on the surface of a wafer is prevented even if particles are generated during transport, by transferring the wafers after mirror-polishing, cleaning, and drying into a container body having an opening which is closed and hermetically sealed with a cover after introduction of the wafers. The container body is disposed so that the opening is oriented in a direction other than an upward direction, and with the container body in this attitude dry air is supplied through the opening to replace the air in the container body with dry air. Then the container is oriented with the opening facing a wafer supply position and wafers are transferred into the container while the dry air is maintained in the container, after which the top cover is attached to the container body, with all of these steps being performed under highly clean air having an absolute water content of 2 ppm or less.

Abstract: The invention seeks to provide a method of producing slices, such as semiconductor wafers, from a rod-like ingot, which does not require any cutting margin for slicing so that less material is consumed, and also is free from warping or denatured layer of the slices, as well as being free from operating environment deterioration with high quality. A cylindrical ingot is obtained by cutting or grinding the outer periphery of a rod-like ingot, and it is then formed with a plurality of annular grooves at a predetermined pitch in its longitudinal direction to obtain a cylindrical work with annular grooves. The work is then severed in the section defined by the bottom of each annular groove by generating a stress in excess of the rupture strength of the slice in the groove.After the heating of the cylindrical work with annular grooves, the under-process end face of the work is suitably cooled quickly by cooling water jet from a jet nozzle from the outer periphery toward the center of the work.

Abstract: A polishing method and apparatus for reducing wafer taper in single-wafer polishing are disclosed, by which the whole processes from measurement of thickness profile of wafers and polishing thereof are fully automated and the working efficiency is not only improved, but also the polished wafers are produced with high accuracy in reduction of the taper thereof.The present invention is executed as follows: Thickness profiles of a wafer is measured with a measurement instrument of thickness in X,Y direction mutually perpendicular, and the taper T and stock removal S.sub.0 are determined from the thickness profiles with the method of least squares by a CPU and further the eccentricity .delta., which is the distance between the center of the wafer and that of pressing force, is determined with the help of an equation.delta.=T.R/8.S.sub.0,where R is the radius of the wafer, by the CPU.