Polishing apparatus and polishing method

Abstract

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.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A polishing apparatus for polishing a workpiece, the polishing apparatus comprising:
 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 the chuck table 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 being configured to come into contact with a polishing surface of the polishing pad and shape the polishing surface into a desired shape.   
     
     
         2 . The polishing apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein
 the shaping unit is disposed in such a manner as to be adjacent to the chuck table, and is positioned at a desired position of the polishing surface by the moving mechanism.   
     
     
         3 . A polishing method for polishing a workpiece, the polishing method comprising:
 a preparing step of preparing a polishing apparatus including a shaping unit;   a dimensional data obtaining step of obtaining dimensional data for finishing an upper surface of the workpiece into a desired shape;   a shaping step of shaping a polishing surface of a polishing pad by the shaping unit on a basis of the dimensional data obtained in the dimensional data obtaining step; and   a polishing step of finishing the upper surface of the workpiece into the desired shape by polishing the workpiece while the polishing surface of the polishing pad is held in contact with the workpiece held by a chuck table.