JP2001318369A - Liquid crystal display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the display quality of a large-capacity, high-definition color liquid crystal display device by improving its opening ratio more. SOLUTION: A columnar spacer 13 formed by stacking colored layers 33, 34, and 36 of the primary colors of red(R), green(G), and blue(B) on a light shield layer 32 of a color filter layer 18 is arranged and formed in the intersection area of scanning lines 26 and 27 to form auxiliary capacitance between the scanning line 26 and a pixel electrode 17. Consequently, an auxiliary capacitance line need not be provided independently of the scanning line 26, so that opening ratio is improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of forming a columnar spacer by using a color filter comprising a light-shielding film and a coloring material.
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device that maintains a constant gap between electrode substrates.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a liquid crystal composition has been sealed in a gap between two glass substrates having electrodes, and red (R), green (G), and blue have been placed on one of the glass substrates by photolithography or the like. (B) Alternatively, a pattern is formed such that stripe-colored organic resin insulating films of three primary colors of yellow (Y), magenta (M), and cyan (C) are alternately arranged. A color liquid crystal display device having a color filter layer provided with a light shielding layer between them has been developed.

In this color liquid crystal display device, an array substrate in which pixel electrodes driven by thin film transistors (hereinafter abbreviated as TFTs) are arranged in a matrix, and a counter substrate having counter electrodes. In recent years, active matrix color liquid crystal display devices in which a liquid crystal composition is sealed in between to allow a large screen and high-definition image display have been used. Stacking organic resin insulating films to form columnar spacers,
An apparatus for maintaining a constant gap between the two substrates has been developed.

[0004] In order to prevent the aperture ratio of the liquid crystal display device from lowering, such columnar spacers have heretofore been arranged and formed in a scanning line region wider than a signal line.

[0005]

However, in recent years, with the necessity of an even larger screen and higher definition of an active matrix type color liquid crystal display device, thinning of scanning lines has been promoted, and a higher aperture ratio has been obtained. For this reason, an apparatus has been proposed in which a scanning line is used instead of an auxiliary capacitance line separately provided in a pixel electrode region, and an auxiliary capacitance is formed between the scanning line and the pixel electrode. For this reason, there has been a problem that the columnar spacer cannot be arranged in the scanning line region.

In view of the above, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problem. In spite of using a scanning line for forming an auxiliary capacitance, a columnar spacer formed by laminating a colored organic resin insulating film of a color filter layer is used to provide a space between both substrates. The object of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal display device which can maintain a constant gap, has a large capacity, a high definition and a high aperture ratio without lowering the aperture ratio, and can obtain a good display quality. And

[0007]

According to the present invention, as means for solving the above-mentioned problems, a plurality of switching elements arranged near intersections of signal lines and scanning lines and a plurality of pixel electrodes connected to the switching elements are provided. In a liquid crystal display device comprising a first substrate and a liquid crystal composition sealed in a gap between a first substrate and a second substrate having a counter electrode and disposed opposite to the first substrate with a predetermined gap therebetween, A color filter layer that is provided on one of the substrate and the second substrate and that includes a light-shielding layer and a colored layer of a plurality of colors; and a color filter layer that is disposed on a part of the signal line region and that is provided on the light-shielding layer. And a columnar spacer formed by laminating layers.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a switching element arranged near an intersection of a signal line and a scanning line, a first substrate having a plurality of pixel electrodes connected to the switching element, and A second electrode having a counter electrode disposed opposite to the first substrate with a predetermined gap therebetween.
In a liquid crystal display device in which a liquid crystal composition is sealed in a gap between substrates, a light-shielding layer and a red, green, and blue colored layer are provided on one of the first substrate and the second substrate. And a color filter layer, which is disposed in a part of the signal line region, is formed by laminating two adjacent colored layers of the colored layers on the light shielding layer, and further laminating the remaining colored layers. A spacer is provided.

With the above structure, according to the present invention, a scanning line can be used for forming an auxiliary capacitance by disposing a columnar spacer formed by laminating a colored organic resin insulating film of a color filter layer in a part of a signal line region. In addition to contributing to the improvement of the aperture ratio, a columnar spacer formed by laminating a colored organic resin insulating film of the color filter layer can be easily formed, and without lowering the aperture ratio, the distance between the two substrates can be reduced. It is possible to obtain a liquid crystal display device that can maintain a constant gap, has a large capacity, high definition, and has high display quality and high aperture ratio.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the embodiments shown in FIGS. Reference numeral 10 denotes an active matrix type color liquid crystal display device, which includes an array substrate 11 as a first substrate and a counter substrate 12 as a second substrate.
Are arranged facing each other so as to maintain a constant gap, for example, a gap of 5 μm, by a columnar spacer 13, and a liquid crystal composition 14 is sealed in the formed gap. The array substrate 11 includes
A pixel electrode 17 made of indium tin oxide (hereinafter abbreviated as ITO) driven by a thin film transistor (hereinafter abbreviated as a TFT) 16 as a plurality of switching elements.
Are patterned in a matrix. The counter substrate 12 has a color filter layer 18 and a counter electrode 20 made of ITO on a glass substrate 21.

The array substrate 11 is patterned on a glass substrate 23 so that a plurality of scan lines 26 having a width of about 20 μm and signal lines 27 having a width of about 5 μm intersect with an insulating film 28 interposed therebetween. Formed and then an insulating film 3
The pixel electrode 17 is arranged via 0. Counter substrate 12
The color filter layer 18 is formed of a black organic resin insulating film, and the scanning lines 26 and the signal lines 2 are formed so as to form the openings 31.
7, a light-shielding layer 32 having a thickness of 3.0 .mu.m, and an organic resin insulating film having a thickness of 2.0 .mu.m in a flat region, which is colored in three primary colors of red (R), green (G), and blue (B). Layers 33, 3
4 and 36 are formed by patterning in stripes.

That is, when the color filter layer 18 is formed, a photosensitive black resin is applied on the glass substrate 21 by a spinner, and is exposed using a photomask having a pattern shape that leaves regions for covering the scanning lines and the signal lines. Thereafter, the light shielding layer 32 is formed by development. Next, after applying a UV curable acrylic resin resist in which a red pigment was dispersed on the entire surface by using a spinner, exposure was performed by irradiating ultraviolet rays through a photomask that irradiates only a portion where a red colored layer was formed with ultraviolet rays. Thereafter, development is performed to form a red colored layer 33. Similarly, an ultraviolet-curable acrylic resin resist in which a green pigment is dispersed by a photolithography technique and an ultraviolet-curable acrylic resin resist in which a blue pigment is dispersed are arranged in necessary portions, and red (R), green (G), Striped colored layers 33 to 36 of three primary colors of blue (B) are formed.

However, in the intersection area between the scanning line 26 and the signal line 27, the adjacent primary color layers and the remaining primary color layers 33 to 36 on the light-shielding layer 32 are formed in a pattern so as to be laminated to form a columnar shape. A spacer 13 is formed. In the regions other than the intersection region between the scanning line 26 and the signal line 27, the adjacent coloring layers 33 to 36 are separated from each other so as to form a gap 37 in the center of the light shielding layer 32 without overlapping.

That is, the columnar spacers 13 can be easily arranged and formed by forming the respective colored layers 33 to 36 in a laminated pattern at the intersections of the scanning lines 26 and the signal lines 27 when the color filter layer 18 is formed. You.

On the color filter layer 18, an ITO film is formed by sputtering to form the counter electrode 20. At this time, in the region other than the intersection region of the scanning line 26 and the signal line 27, the adjacent coloring layers 33 to 36 are formed. Is separated from the light shielding layer 3
2 Since the gap 37 is formed in the center and is formed in a concave shape, the opposing electrode 20 includes the light-shielding layer 32 and the colored layers 33 to 36.
And the distortion at the periphery of the opening 31 is prevented.

After the alignment films 38a and 38b are applied to the array substrate 11 and the opposing substrate 12 as described above, and the alignment process is performed, the substrates 11 and 12 are bonded to each other with an adhesive (not shown). A liquid crystal cell in which a uniform gap is maintained by the spacer 13 is formed. Further, the liquid crystal composition 1 is placed in the gap between the liquid crystal cells.
4 is injected, and the injection port is sealed.
Is formed.

In the color liquid crystal display device 10,
An auxiliary capacitance is formed between the scanning line 26 and the pixel electrode 17, and an auxiliary capacitance line is formed separately from the scanning line 26 on the array substrate 11.
It is not necessary to form it on the top, and a region with poor alignment due to rubbing or the like (a region that becomes a shadow of the spacer at the time of rubbing) is formed on the TFT
By setting to be above, the aperture ratio is improved by about 5% in the 11.3-inch size XGA specification, depending on the image pitch.

With this configuration, the colored layers 33 to 36 are formed on the light shielding layer 32 at the intersections of the scanning lines 26 and the signal lines 27, avoiding the region where the scanning lines 26 are stacked with the pixel electrodes 17.
Are stacked and the columnar spacers 13 are arranged, so that an auxiliary capacitance can be formed between the scanning line 26 and the pixel electrode 17. Therefore, it is not necessary to provide a dedicated storage capacitance line separately from the scanning line 26 in the display area, and the aperture ratio can be further improved while having a large capacity and high definition, and a good display quality can be obtained.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be changed without departing from the spirit of the present invention. For example, the position of the columnar spacer is determined by the intersection area between the signal line and the scanning line. The present invention is not limited to this, and may be any as long as it is within the area of the signal line, and may be provided on the array substrate side. The light-shielding layer is not limited to the organic resin insulating film, and may be a metal material such as chromium (Cr) or chromium oxide (Cr ₂ O ₃ ), but is formed by laminating a colored layer on the light-shielding layer. In this case, a resin material that can be formed into a thick film is preferably used.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, a columnar spacer formed by laminating a light-shielding layer and a coloring layer of a color filter in a signal line region is formed, so that a columnar spacer is formed between a scanning line and a pixel electrode. A storage capacitor can be formed, which eliminates the need for providing a storage capacitor line separately from, for example, a scanning line.
A large-capacity, high-definition liquid crystal display device with higher display quality can be obtained with higher aperture ratio.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing an array substrate according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view showing a color filter layer according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic cross-sectional view of the color liquid crystal display device at a position corresponding to line AA ′ in FIG. 2 according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic cross-sectional view of the color liquid crystal display device at a position corresponding to line BB ′ in FIG. 2 of the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Color liquid crystal display device 11 ... Array substrate 12 ... Counter substrate 13 ... Column spacer 14 ... Liquid crystal composition 16 ... TFT 17 ... Pixel electrode 18 ... Color filter layer 20 ... Counter electrode 26 ... Scanning line 27 ... Signal line 32 ... Light shielding Layers 33 to 36: Colored layer

Claims (5)

[Claims] A first substrate having a plurality of switching elements arranged in the vicinity of an intersection of a signal line and a scanning line, and a plurality of pixel electrodes connected to the switching elements; and a predetermined gap from the first substrate. A liquid crystal display device in which a liquid crystal composition is sealed in a gap between a second substrate having a counter electrode and a light shielding layer provided on one of the first substrate and the second substrate. And a color filter layer comprising a plurality of colored layers, and a columnar spacer which is disposed in a part of the signal line region and is formed by laminating the plurality of colored layers on the light shielding layer. Liquid crystal display device. 2. A first substrate having a plurality of switching elements arranged near intersections of signal lines and scanning lines, a plurality of pixel electrodes connected to the switching elements, and a predetermined gap from the first substrate. A liquid crystal display device in which a liquid crystal composition is sealed in a gap between a second substrate having a counter electrode and a light shielding layer provided on one of the first substrate and the second substrate. And a color filter layer composed of red, green, and blue colored layers, and a color filter layer that is disposed in a part of the signal line region and has two colored layers adjacent to each other among the colored layers stacked on the light-shielding layer, And a columnar spacer formed by laminating the remaining colored layers. 3. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1, wherein the light shielding layer is made of a resin film. 4. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1, wherein the adjacent color layers of the color filter layer are separated except for the columnar spacer portion. 5. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1, wherein the columnar spacer is disposed in the signal line region at an intersection with the scanning line.