PURPOSE: To expand the adhesion area of an ink on a pellet by a method wherein, in a marking operation, the shape of the needle point of an ink cartridge coming into contact with a defective pellet is formed to be a shape coming into contact with the face of the pellet.

CONSTITUTION: A cylindrical needle point 1 is cut to be a face shape in such a way that it is parallel to a wafer 3. In this case, the shape of the needle point 1 coming into contact with the wafer 3 becomes oval-shaped. As a result, when a mark is formed, the adhesion area of an ink can be expanded. When the shape of the needle is squar pillar-shaped, the shape of its face coming into contact with the wafer becomes rectangular. As a result, its contact area with the wafer is expanded further, and the adhesion area of the ink on a pellet is expanded. As a result, even a pellet whose quality could not be judged automatically by an automatic recognition operation in conventional cases can be recognized automatically by means of a mounter.