POLISHING APPARATUS AND POLISHING METHOD

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POLISHING APPARATUS AND POLISHING METHOD

This abstract first appeared for US patent application 18890092 titled 'POLISHING APPARATUS AND POLISHING METHOD

Original Abstract Submitted

A polishing apparatus includes a chuck table configured to hold the workpiece, a polishing unit including a rotatable polishing pad configured to polish the workpiece held by the chuck table, a moving mechanism configured to move a holding unit to a loading and unloading region for loading and unloading the workpiece onto and from the chuck table and a polishing region for polishing the workpiece by the polishing unit, a raising and lowering mechanism configured to bring the polishing pad into contact with the workpiece held by the chuck table or separate the polishing pad from the workpiece by raising or lowering the polishing unit, and a shaping unit configured to shape the polishing pad. The shaping unit comes into contact with a polishing surface of the polishing pad, and shapes the polishing surface into a desired shape.