A bump formation method and a bump forming apparatus for a semiconductor wafer are provided in which productivity when bumps are formed onto the semiconductor wafer is improved as compared with the conventional art. There are provided a bump forming head, a recognition device, and a control device. ICs formed on the semiconductor wafer are divided into basic blocks. Bump formation is performed continuously for the ICs included in one basic block. Positional recognition for the other basic blocks is performed only when the bump formation operation is shifted from one basic block to another basic block. Thus, in comparison with the conventional art whereby a positional recognition operation is performed every time bumps are formed on each IC, the number of times of performing positional recognition is greatly reduced, so that productivity can be improved.