Disclosure of Invention
Accordingly, it is necessary to provide a touch panel to solve the problem of appearance distortion caused by exposure misalignment.
The present invention is achieved as such, a touch panel, comprising:
a transparent substrate; a front electrode lead area is arranged on the front surface of the transparent substrate, and a front window is formed around the inner side of the front electrode lead area; a back electrode lead area is arranged on the back of the transparent substrate, and a back window corresponding to the front window is formed around the inner side of the back electrode lead area; the width of the front window is larger than that of the corresponding position of the back window.
According to the touch screen provided by the invention, when the quality inspection is carried out from the back surface of the transparent substrate, the back electrode lead area can completely shield the front electrode lead area, so that the width difference between the front electrode wiring area and the back electrode wiring area can compensate the deviation between the front electrode lead area and the back electrode lead area caused by exposure deviation to a certain extent, and the appearance inspection yield of the touch screen is greatly improved.
Furthermore, the difference value between the width of the front window and the width of the corresponding position of the back window is 40 um-400 um, so that the area of a touch area of the touch screen is increased as much as possible on the premise of avoiding appearance distortion caused by exposure deviation.
Further, the difference is 120um ~ 200um to further improve the area in touch-control screen touch-control district.
Furthermore, the widths of the positions of the front electrode wiring area are equal, and the widths of the positions of the back electrode wiring area are equal, so that the whole touch screen can be conveniently produced and processed.
Further, the projection of the back window in the direction perpendicular to the transparent substrate falls within the front window. Therefore, the back electrode lead area can be ensured to completely shield the front electrode lead area, and poor appearance inspection can be avoided.
The invention also provides a touch display device which comprises the touch screen and a light shielding layer arranged on the periphery of the front window of the touch screen, wherein the width of the light shielding layer is more than or equal to that of the corresponding position of the back electrode lead area of the touch screen, so that the back electrode lead area is prevented from being exposed at the front window.
The invention also provides a double-windowing process of a touch screen, which is used for forming a front electrode lead area and a back electrode lead area on the copper film layers on the front surface and the back surface of a transparent substrate respectively, wherein the inner side of the front electrode lead area is surrounded to form a front window, and the inner side of the back electrode lead area is surrounded to form a back window, and the double-windowing process is characterized by comprising the following steps of:
setting a light resistance: the front surface copper film layer of the transparent substrate is provided with a front surface light resistance layer which can completely cover the front surface copper film layer, and the back surface copper film layer of the transparent substrate is provided with a back surface light resistance layer which completely covers the back surface copper film layer.
Setting a mask: pasting a front mask of the typeset front electrode lead area patterns on the front photoresist layer, and pasting a back mask of the typeset back wiring area patterns on the back photoresist layer; wherein the front mask is disposed corresponding to the back mask so as to oppose the front window and the back window which are formed last.
Exposure: and exposing the front photoresist layer with the front mask and the back photoresist layer with the back mask to transfer the front electrode lead area pattern and the back electrode lead area pattern onto the front photoresist layer and the back photoresist layer.
And (3) developing: and removing the front mask and the back mask, and developing the pattern of the front electrode lead area transferred on the front photoresist layer and the image of the back electrode lead area transferred on the back photoresist layer by using a developing solution.
Etching: and removing the copper film outside the copper film layer region corresponding to the front wiring pattern and the back electrode lead region pattern by using a copper etching solution to form the front electrode lead region and the back electrode lead region, thereby obtaining the front window and the back window.
And the width of the front window is smaller than that of the corresponding position of the back window.
The double-window process for the touch screen provided by the invention can solve the problem of deviation between the front electrode lead area and the back electrode lead area caused by exposure deviation without adding a process in the original touch screen production process, thereby not only improving the appearance yield of products, but also not increasing the production cost.
Furthermore, the front photoresist layer and the back photoresist layer are both dry film layers, so as to facilitate the setting of the photoresist layers.
Furthermore, the difference value between the width of the front window and the width of the corresponding position of the back window is 40 um-400 um, so that the area of a touch area of the touch screen is increased as much as possible on the premise of avoiding appearance distortion caused by exposure deviation.
Furthermore, the widths of the positions of the front electrode wiring area are equal, and the widths of the positions of the back electrode wiring area are equal, so that the subsequent production and processing of the touch screen can be facilitated.
Detailed Description
To facilitate an understanding of the invention, the invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Preferred embodiments of the present invention are shown in the drawings. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete.
It will be understood that when an element is referred to as being "secured to" or "mounted to" another element, it can be directly on the other element or intervening elements may also be present. As used herein, the terms "upper", "lower", and the like are used with reference to a touch screen placed on a horizontal surface, for purposes of illustration only, and are not meant to be the only embodiments.
As shown in fig. 2, in the embodiment provided in the present invention, the touch screen includes: the transparent substrate 5, in this embodiment the transparent substrate 5 is a plastic substrate, in particular a COP material substrate (COP is an abbreviation of Cyclo Olefin Polymer, a kind of cyclic Olefin Polymer). Of course, in other embodiments provided by the present invention, a glass plate or the like may be used as the transparent substrate 5. A front electrode lead area 6 is arranged on the front surface of the transparent substrate 5 (the front electrode lead area 6 is an area of an electrode lead arranged on the front surface of the transparent substrate), and a front window 7 is formed around the inner side of the front electrode lead area 6; the back surface of the transparent substrate 5 is provided with a back electrode lead area 8 (the back electrode lead area is an area of an electrode lead arranged on the back surface of the transparent substrate), a back window 9 is formed around the inner side of the back electrode lead area and is opposite to the front window 7, and the projection of the back window 9 in the direction vertical to the transparent substrate 5 falls into the front window 7. Ideally, the rear window 9 is symmetrical to the front window 7 without taking into account misalignment tolerances, so that the visible area of the touch screen is maximized. The front electrode wiring area 6 corresponds to the back electrode wiring area 8, the width of the front window 7 is larger than the width of the corresponding position of the back window 9, so that a part of the back electrode wiring area 8 is exposed in the front window 7, and at the moment, when the back surface of the transparent substrate is detected, the back electrode wiring areas 8 on the two sides 9 of the back window can shield the front electrode wiring areas 6 on the two sides of the front window 7. When the touch screen is shipped, the front side of the touch screen often comprises a cover plate, and the cover plate is provided with an ink layer with a frame shielding function, so that the front electrode lead area 6 and the back electrode lead area 8 cannot be seen from the front side. Therefore, the deviation between the front electrode lead area 6 and the back electrode lead area 8 caused by exposure deviation can be compensated to a certain extent, and the appearance inspection yield of the touch screen is greatly improved.
It should be understood that the width of the front window refers to a distance between inner sides of the two front electrode lead regions, and the width of the rear window refers to a distance between inner sides of the two rear electrode lead regions. The phrase "the width of the front window is greater than the width of the corresponding position of the back window" can also be understood as that the distance between the inner sides of the two front electrode lead areas reserved on the cross section of the touch screen is greater than the distance between the inner sides of the two back electrode lead areas. In the present embodiment, this is because. The term "width" is used herein in a broad sense, and may be a distance between the inner sides of the upper and lower electrode lead sections facing each other on the same plane, or a distance between the inner sides of the left and right electrode lead sections.
In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, the outer side of the front electrode lead region 6 is flush with the outer side of the rear electrode lead region 8, so that the rear electrode lead region 8 can be prevented from being seen from the front side, or the front electrode lead region 6 can be prevented from being seen from the rear side. It should be understood that the routing areas of the front and rear surfaces are provided with a plurality of electrode leads, and the width of the front electrode lead area (or the width of the rear electrode lead area) refers to the width between the outermost electrode lead and the innermost electrode lead. Of course, since the width of the back electrode lead region 8 is greater than the width of the front electrode lead region 6 in the embodiment and the width value is greater than the misalignment tolerance, the back electrode lead region 8 sufficiently covers the front electrode lead region 6, and it is not necessary to make the outer side of the front electrode lead region 6 flush with the outer side of the back electrode lead region 8.
In the embodiment provided by the invention, the front window and the back window are both rectangular windows, and the front window and the back window can also be in a U-shaped window and other forms. In addition, in this embodiment, the number of the front electrode lead regions and the number of the back electrode lead regions are two, the two front electrode lead regions are matched with each other to surround to form the front window, and the two back electrode lead regions are matched with each other to surround to form the back window. The window, also commonly referred to as the viewable area of the touch screen, is defined as the area inside the lead frame area.
In the embodiment provided by the invention, the widths of the positions of the front electrode wiring area 6 are equal, and the widths of the positions of the back electrode wiring area 8 are equal, so that the whole touch screen can be conveniently produced and processed.
In the touch screen, the larger the front window 7 and the back window 9 are, the larger the touch area of the touch screen is, and thus the larger the screen occupation ratio of the touch screen is, so in order to improve the screen occupation ratio of the touch screen as much as possible on the premise of avoiding appearance distortion caused by exposure deviation, in the embodiment provided by the invention, the difference value between the width of the front window 7 and the width of the corresponding position of the back window 9 is 40 um-400 um. Specifically, set up to 400um to make the yields of outward appearance higher.
In addition, in actual production, the shift amount of the front window relative to the back window caused by exposure deviation is mostly between 100um and 200um, so in order to further improve the screen occupation ratio of the touch screen, the difference between the width of the front window 7 and the width of the position corresponding to the back window 9 is preferably 120um to 200um, and is preferably set to 200 um.
It can be understood that, in the actual manufacturing process, the outer side of the front electrode lead area 6 is generally flush with the outer side of the back electrode lead area 8, and the widths of the positions of the front electrode lead area around the front window 7 are equal, and the widths of the positions of the back electrode lead area around the back window 9 are equal, so that when the width difference between the front window 7 and the back window area meets the requirement, the difference between the width of the front electrode lead area and the width of the corresponding position of the back lead area is half of the difference between the positions of the front window 7 and the back window 9. When the difference between the width of the front window 7 and the width of the position corresponding to the back window 9 is 40 um-400 um, the width of the front electrode wiring area at the position is 20 um-200 um smaller than that of the back electrode wiring area; when the difference between the width of the front window 7 and the width of the corresponding position of the back window 9 is 120 um-200 um, the width of the front electrode wiring area at the position is 60 um-100 um smaller than that of the back electrode wiring area.
It should be understood that the touch screen is a multi-layer stacked structure, and in the embodiment provided by the present invention, the touch screen further includes an electrode layer 10, etc., wherein the electrode layer 10 is disposed between the electrode lead layer (the layer where the front electrode lead region 6 and the back electrode lead region 8 are located is referred to as an electrode lead layer) and the transparent substrate 5, and is electrically connected to the electrode leads on the electrode lead layer. In the present embodiment, the electrode layers 10 are two ITO layers disposed on the front and back surfaces of the transparent substrate 5. A plurality of capacitance units are formed between the two ITO layers, when a person touches the touch screen, high-frequency current can pass through the capacitance units in the finger contact area, the current can flow out of electrode leads of the electrode layers, and the controller can obtain the position of a touch point through processing the current.
The invention also provides a touch display device which uses the touch screen in any embodiment. In this embodiment, the periphery of the front window of the touch screen is provided with a light shielding layer, wherein the width of the light shielding layer is greater than or equal to the width of the corresponding position of the back electrode lead area of the touch screen, so as to prevent the back electrode lead area from being exposed at the front window. That is, the light-shielding layer can prevent the back electrode lead region from being seen from the front surface of the touch panel. The shading layer can be a shading dry film which is pasted on the front electrode lead area, or an ink layer which is coated on the corresponding position of a protective layer, and the protective layer covers the front electrode lead area. In addition, in this embodiment, the touch display device may be a terminal product such as a smart phone and a tablet computer.
The invention also provides a double-window process of the touch screen, which is used for forming a front electrode lead area and a back electrode lead area on the copper film layers on the front surface and the back surface of the transparent substrate respectively, wherein the inner side of the front electrode lead area is surrounded to form a front window, and the inner side of the back electrode lead area is surrounded to form an inner window. As shown in fig. 3, in the present embodiment, the dual window process includes:
step S1: and setting a light resistance, namely setting a front light resistance layer which can completely cover the front copper film layer on the front copper film layer of the transparent substrate, and setting a back light resistance layer which completely covers the back copper film layer on the back copper film layer of the transparent substrate. In order to facilitate the arrangement of the photoresist layer, in this embodiment, both the front photoresist layer and the back photoresist layer are dry film layers, and specifically, a negative photoresist dry film is used in this embodiment, i.e., a chemical polymerization reaction occurs at the light irradiation position and is not dissolved in the developing solution. The dry film is pasted on the copper film layer through a dry film machine, and in order to enable the pasting of the dry film to have a better effect, in the embodiment, the pasting temperature of the dry film is between 85 ℃ and 90 ℃. It is understood that in other embodiments provided by the present invention, the dry film layer may also be a negative photoresist dry film, and of course, in other embodiments provided by the present invention, the photoresist may also be a photoresist, etc. In addition, in this embodiment, an ITO layer is disposed between the transparent substrate and the front copper film, and between the transparent substrate and the back copper film, wherein the copper film is used to form an electrode lead, and the ITO layer is used to form a capacitor electrode.
Step S2: setting a mask, namely pasting the front mask with the pattern of the front electrode lead area to be composed on a front photoresist layer, pasting the back mask with the pattern removed by wiring on the back to be composed on a back photoresist layer, and correspondingly setting the front mask and the back mask to enable the front window to be formed at last to be aligned with the back window, wherein the front mask and the back mask can both adopt a film. It can be understood that when the patterns of the front electrode lead region and the patterns of the back electrode lead region are laid out, the patterns of the front window and the back window are laid out. In addition, the patterns of the front electrode lead area and the patterns of the back electrode lead area correspond to each other, so that the finally obtained front electrode wiring area corresponds to the back electrode wiring area, namely the front window corresponds to the back window.
Step S3: and exposing, namely performing exposure treatment on the front photoresist layer attached with the front mask and the back photoresist layer attached with the back mask to transfer the front electrode lead area pattern and the back electrode lead area pattern onto the front photoresist layer and the back photoresist layer respectively. In this example, exposure was carried out by ultraviolet rays at an exposure wavelength of 300 to 400nm and an exposure energy of 10mj/cm2~100mj/cm2。
Step S4: and developing, after removing the front mask and the back mask, the image of the front electrode lead area pattern transferred on the front photoresist layer and the image of the back electrode lead area transferred on the back photoresist layer are developed by using a developing solution, namely, the photoresist layer except the image of the front electrode lead area and the image of the back electrode lead area are removed through a developing treatment. In this embodiment, the developing solution is a sodium carbonate solution with a mass fraction of 1% to 10%, and it is understood that in other embodiments provided by the present invention, the developing solution may also be a weak base solution such as potassium carbonate.
Step S5: and etching, namely removing the copper film outside the copper film layer region corresponding to the front wiring pattern and the back electrode lead region pattern by using a copper etching solution to form a front electrode lead region and a back electrode lead region, namely removing the copper film outside the front electrode lead region and the back electrode lead region by using the etching solution to form a front window and a back window, wherein the width of the front window is greater than that of the corresponding position of the back window. In this embodiment, the copper etchant is H2O2The molar ratio of the four in the mixed solution is 10:4:1: 50. It is understood that in other embodiments provided by the present invention, other strong acid solutions can be used for the copper etching solution, and the present invention is not limited thereto.
Through the double-window process provided by the embodiment, the width of the front window 7 of the produced touch screen is larger than that of the corresponding position of the back window 9, when the back side of the transparent substrate is detected, the back electrode lead areas 8 of the two sides 9 of the back window can shield the front electrode lead areas 6 of the two sides of the front window 7, so that the deviation between the front electrode lead areas 6 and the back electrode lead areas 8 caused by exposure deviation can be compensated to a certain extent, and the appearance inspection yield of the touch screen is greatly improved. In addition, the double-window process provided by the embodiment can solve the problem of deviation between the front window and the back window caused by exposure deviation only by improving the pattern on the mask without additionally adding procedures and equipment in the original touch screen production process, thereby not only improving the appearance yield of the product, but also not increasing the production cost.
In order to improve the screen occupation ratio of the touch screen as much as possible on the premise of avoiding appearance distortion caused by exposure deviation, in the embodiment provided by the invention, the difference value between the width of the front window and the width of the corresponding position of the back window 9 is 40-400 um. In actual production, the offset of the front window relative to the back window caused by exposure offset is mostly between 100um and 200um, so in order to further improve the screen occupation ratio of the touch screen, it is preferable that the difference between the width of the front window 7 and the width of the corresponding position of the back window 9 is 120um to 200 um.
That is, when the pitch between the front electrode lead regions to be positioned in the front window a region is set to L and the pitch between the rear electrode lead regions in the rear window B region is set to M, where the a region corresponds to the B region, the value of a is greater than the value of B by 40 to 400 um. Therefore, when the electrode lead region pattern is provided on the mask, the distance between the front electrode lead regions and the non-back electrode lead regions is set to be larger by 40um to 400 um.
It can be understood that, in the complete production process of the touch panel, after the touch panel is double-windowed (i.e., after step S5), the electrode leads are further disposed by etching in the electrode lead area, and then a protective layer is disposed on the front surface of the transparent substrate, and a light-shielding substance such as ink is disposed on the protective layer to form a light-shielding layer. In order to facilitate the production operations of these process flows, in the embodiment provided by the present invention, the widths of the positions in the front electrode routing area are all equal, and the widths of the positions in the back electrode routing area are all equal.
The technical features of the embodiments described above may be arbitrarily combined, and for the sake of brevity, all possible combinations of the technical features in the embodiments described above are not described, but should be considered as being within the scope of the present specification as long as there is no contradiction between the combinations of the technical features.
The above-mentioned embodiments only express several embodiments of the present invention, and the description thereof is more specific and detailed, but not construed as limiting the scope of the invention. It should be noted that, for a person skilled in the art, several variations and modifications can be made without departing from the inventive concept, which falls within the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present patent shall be subject to the appended claims.