Patents by Inventor Ryugo Oba

Ryugo Oba has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 7396780
    Abstract: A method of carrying out the laser processing of a wafer with a laser beam processing machine comprising a chuck table for holding a wafer, a laser beam application means for applying a laser beam to the wafer held on the chuck table and a processing-feed means for processing-feeding the chuck table and the laser beam application means relative to each other, comprising the steps of a wafer affixing step for putting the wafer on the surface of a protective tape mounted on an annular frame, a wafer holding step for holding the wafer put on the protective tape on the chuck table, and a laser beam application step for applying a laser beam having a predetermined wavelength from the laser beam application means to the wafer held on the chuck table and processing-feeding the wafer with the processing-feed means, wherein the protective tape is made of a material which transmits the laser beam having a predetermined wavelength applied from the laser beam application means.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2005
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2008
    Assignee: Disco Corporation
    Inventors: Hitoshi Hoshino, Ryugo Oba, Kenji Furuta, Noburu Takeda, Nobuyasu Kitahara
  • Publication number: 20080047408
    Abstract: A method of dividing a wafer having devices in areas sectioned by lattice pattern-like streets on the front surface and a metal layer formed on the rear surface along the streets, comprising the steps of cutting the wafer with a cutting blade from the front surface side along the streets to form a cut groove, leaving behind a remaining portion having a predetermined thickness from the rear surface; and applying a laser beam along the cut groove formed by the above cut groove forming step to cut the remaining portion and the metal layer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 20, 2007
    Publication date: February 28, 2008
    Inventors: Ryugo Oba, Hiroshi Morikazu, Kenji Furuta, Yohei Yamashita
  • Publication number: 20080020548
    Abstract: A wafer laser processing method for forming grooves along streets by applying a pulse laser beam along the streets for sectioning a plurality of devices of a wafer having the plurality of devices which are composed of a laminate consisting of an insulating film and a functional film, on the front surface of a substrate, wherein the pulse laser beam is set to have a repetition frequency of 150 kHz to 100 MHz and an energy per unit length of 5 to 25 J/m.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 19, 2007
    Publication date: January 24, 2008
    Inventors: Hiroshi Morikazu, Ryugo Oba, Yukio Morishige, Toshio Tsuchiya, Koji Yamaguchi
  • Publication number: 20080003708
    Abstract: To provide a method of processing a sapphire substrate, where reduction in luminance of light emitting devices can be suppressed if a sapphire substrate is divided into individual light emitting devices by irradiation of a laser beam, a pulsed laser beam having a small pulse energy of 0.6 ?J to 10 ?J, and an extremely small pulse width in a range of femto-second is irradiated to the sapphire substrate while a condensing point is positioned within each of regions corresponding to predetermined division lines on the sapphire substrate so that affected zones are formed, thereby the laser beam can be irradiated even at a high peak power density of 4×1013 W/cm2 to 5×1015 W/cm2, consequently each of the affected zones can be formed at only a desired condensing point within the sapphire substrate, and necessary processing can be performed while damage to nitride semiconductors or the sapphire substrate is minimized.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 28, 2007
    Publication date: January 3, 2008
    Inventors: Hitoshi Hoshino, Koji Yamaguchi, Kenji Furuta, Hiroshi Morikazu, Ryugo Oba, Yukio Morishige
  • Publication number: 20070235430
    Abstract: A laser beam processing machine comprising a laser beam application means for applying a laser beam to a workpiece held on a chuck table, a processing-feed means, an indexing-feed means, a processing-feed amount detection means for detecting the amount of feed, an indexing-feed amount detection means, and a control means, wherein the condenser constituting the laser beam application means comprises an elliptic spot forming means for forming a focal spot into an elliptic shape and a focal spot turning means for turning the elliptic focal spot on an optical axis as the center thereof; and the control means comprises a storage means for storing the X, Y coordinate values of a processing line formed on the workpiece, obtains the X, Y coordinate values of the current position of a laser beam application position based on detection signals from the processing-feed amount detection means and the indexing-feed amount detection means, and controls the focal spot turning means to ensure that the long axis of the focal
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 6, 2007
    Publication date: October 11, 2007
    Inventors: Ryugo Oba, Hiroshi Morikazu
  • Publication number: 20070228020
    Abstract: A laser processing beam machine comprising a chuck table for holding a workpiece, a laser beam application means for applying a laser beam to the workpiece held on the chuck table, and a processing-feed means for moving the chuck table and the laser beam application means relative to each other, wherein the laser beam application means comprises a laser beam oscillation means for oscillating a laser beam and a condenser for converging the laser beam oscillated by the laser beam oscillation means; and the condenser comprises a condenser lens opposed to the workpiece held on the chuck table, a cylindrical lens arranged on the upstream side in the laser beam application direction of the condenser lens, and an interval adjustment mechanism for adjusting the interval between the condenser lens and the cylindrical lens.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 28, 2007
    Publication date: October 4, 2007
    Inventor: Ryugo Oba
  • Patent number: 7179723
    Abstract: A laser beam processing method for processing a wafer by applying a laser beam to a predetermined area, comprising the steps of forming a resin film which absorbs a laser beam, on the surface to be processed of the wafer; applying a laser beam to the surface to be processed of the wafer through the resin film; and removing the resin film after the laser beam application step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 2004
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2007
    Assignee: Disco Corporation
    Inventors: Satoshi Genda, Toshiyuki Yoshikawa, Ryugo Oba, Kenji Furuta, Nobuyasu Kitahara
  • Publication number: 20060255022
    Abstract: A wafer laser processing method for forming a groove by applying a pulse laser beam to the back surface of a wafer comprising light emitting elements which are formed in a plurality of areas sectioned by a plurality of dividing lines on the front surface of a sapphire substrate, along the dividing lines, wherein an energy density of a focal spot of the pulse laser beam is set to 1 J/cm2 or more.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 28, 2006
    Publication date: November 16, 2006
    Inventors: Hitoshi Hoshino, Kenji Furuta, Ryugo Oba
  • Publication number: 20060148210
    Abstract: A laser beam processing machine comprising a chuck table for holding a workpiece, a laser beam application means for applying a laser beam to the workpiece held on the chuck table, and a processing-feed means for moving the chuck table and the laser beam application means relative to each other, wherein the condenser of the laser beam application means comprises a first prism for dividing the laser beam oscillated from the laser beam oscillation means into a first laser beam and a second laser beam both having a semicircular section and interchanging the first laser beam and the second laser beam, a second prism for correcting the optical paths of the first laser beam and the second laser beam formed by the first prism to become parallel each other, and an image forming lens for forming respective spots of the first laser beam and the second laser beam whose optical paths have been corrected to be parallel each other by the second prism, into images of spots having linear portions on the outer sides and arcua
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 4, 2006
    Publication date: July 6, 2006
    Inventors: Kenji Furuta, Ryugo Oba
  • Publication number: 20060094260
    Abstract: A method of carrying out the laser processing of a wafer with a laser beam processing machine comprising a chuck table for holding a wafer, a laser beam application means for applying a laser beam to the wafer held on the chuck table and a processing-feed means for processing-feeding the chuck table and the laser beam application means relative to each other, comprising the steps of a wafer affixing step for putting the wafer on the surface of a protective tape mounted on an annular frame, a wafer holding step for holding the wafer put on the protective tape on the chuck table, and a laser beam application step for applying a laser beam having a predetermined wavelength from the laser beam application means to the wafer held on the chuck table and processing-feeding the wafer with the processing-feed means, wherein the protective tape is made of a material which transmits the laser beam having a predetermined wavelength applied from the laser beam application means.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 31, 2005
    Publication date: May 4, 2006
    Inventors: Hitoshi Hoshino, Ryugo Oba, Kenji Furuta, Noburu Takeda, Nobuyasu Kitahara
  • Publication number: 20060035411
    Abstract: A laser processing method for forming a laser groove along dividing lines by applying a pulse laser beam along the dividing lines formed on a workpiece, the method comprising the steps of forming the focusing spot of the pulse laser beam in a shape of oval, positioning the long axis of the oval focusing spot along each of the dividing lines, and moving the focusing spot and the workpiece along the dividing line relative to each other.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 10, 2005
    Publication date: February 16, 2006
    Inventors: Ryugo Oba, Kenji Furuta, Hitoshi Hoshino, Nobuyasu Kitahara, Noboru Takeda
  • Publication number: 20060009008
    Abstract: A method for the laser processing of a wafer having a plurality of devices which are composed of a laminate consisting of an insulating film and a functional film on the front surface of a substrate, the method comprising applying a pulse laser beam along streets for sectioning the plurality of devices to form grooves along the streets, wherein a pulse width of the pulse laser beam is set to 100 to 1,000 ns.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 7, 2005
    Publication date: January 12, 2006
    Inventors: Yasuomi Kaneuchi, Yukio Morishige, Satoshi Genda, Satoshi Kobayashi, Toshio Tsuchiya, Ryugo Oba
  • Publication number: 20050155954
    Abstract: A semiconductor wafer processing method for dividing a semiconductor wafer comprising semiconductor chips, which are composed of a laminate consisting of an insulating film and a functional film laminated on the front surface of a semiconductor substrate and are sectioned by streets, into individual semiconductor chips by cutting the wafer with a cutting blade along the streets, the method comprising a laser groove forming step for forming laser grooves which reach the semiconductor substrate by applying a pulse laser beam to the streets of the semiconductor wafer; and a cutting step for cutting the semiconductor substrate with the cutting blade along the laser grooves formed in the streets of the semiconductor wafer, wherein in the laser groove forming step, spots of the pulse laser beam applied to the streets are shaped into rectangular spots by a mask member and the processing conditions are set to satisfy L>(V/Y) (in which Y (Hz) is a repetition-frequency of the pulse laser beam, V (mm/sec) is a proces
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 18, 2005
    Publication date: July 21, 2005
    Inventors: Ryugo Oba, Hitoshi Hoshino, Yukiyasu Masuda
  • Publication number: 20050106782
    Abstract: A laser beam processing method for processing a wafer by applying a laser beam to a predetermined area, comprising the steps of forming a resin film which absorbs a laser beam, on the surface to be processed of the wafer; applying a laser beam to the surface to be processed of the wafer through the resin film; and removing the resin film after the laser beam application step.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 12, 2004
    Publication date: May 19, 2005
    Inventors: Satoshi Genda, Toshiyuki Yoshikawa, Ryugo Oba, Kenji Furuta, Nobuyasu Kitahara