JP2002134024A - Manufacturing method of flat display panel - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for manufacturing a flat display panel for improved production yield by inspecting/correcting a defect before a conductive material film is patterned, so that the cause of an abnormal process is inferred based on the defect information for correcting the process without delay, resulting in prevented occurrence of a defect with a linear pattern electrode. SOLUTION: There are provided a process where the conductive material film is formed on a substrate, an inspection means for inspecting the film before the process for patterning, a delivery means for carrying out the substrate based on the inspection result, and a defect correcting means for the defects occurring at the film. Based on the inspection result with the film, delivery of the substrate and correction of defects are performed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a flat display panel represented by a liquid crystal display panel (hereinafter referred to as LCD) and a plasma display panel (hereinafter referred to as PDP), and particularly to inspection and correction of a pattern formed on a substrate. In a manufacturing line for manufacturing a flat display panel.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, flat displays such as LCDs and PDPs have a large screen and fine pixels, and it is extremely difficult to manufacture a defect-free product. Therefore, securing a yield is a major issue. For this reason, it has become common practice to include inspection and correction in the manufacturing process of the flat panel display panel to regenerate defective panels as non-defective products and to secure a yield. Inspection of defects in linear pattern electrodes of LCD and PDP in the integrated production line
The correction technique is described in JP-A-10-177844 and JP-A-11-233201. This technology forms a linear pattern electrode by patterning a conductive material film on an LCD or PDP substrate, and then forms a linear pattern using at least one of an electrical continuity inspection by a probe and a defect inspection by image processing. The pattern electrode is inspected, and for the linear pattern electrode in which a defect is found, the defect is corrected and reproduced as a non-defective product.

[0003]

However, in the above prior art, since the inspection is performed after pattern processing is performed on the linear pattern electrode, the state of the conductive material film immediately after the film formation cannot be known. In addition, when a continuous defect occurs during film formation, a large amount of the substrate having the defect is sent to a process after pattern processing, and it is difficult to secure a yield.

The present invention solves the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art, and inspects and detects defects before patterning a conductive material film.
By making corrections, it is possible to quickly detect continuous defects, estimate the cause of process abnormalities from defect information, and immediately repair the process, thereby preventing defects that occur in the linear pattern electrodes and improving product yield. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing a flat display panel.

[0005]

To achieve the above object, a method for manufacturing a flat display panel according to the present invention has the following arrangement. That is, the method of manufacturing a flat display panel of the present invention includes a step of forming a film made of a conductive material on a substrate, and an inspection means for inspecting the conductive material film before the step of patterning the conductive material film, It has an unloading means for unloading the substrate based on the inspection result and a correcting means for correcting a defect generated in the conductive material film, and performs unloading of the substrate and correction of the defect based on the inspection result of the conductive material film. It is a feature. Further, in the method for manufacturing a flat display panel according to the present invention, the means for inspecting the conductive material film includes an illuminating means and an imaging means in which light receiving elements are arranged one-dimensionally. At least one of the illuminating unit and the imaging unit or the inspected substrate moves with respect to the installed inspected substrate to measure transmitted light from the electrically conductive material film and to inspect the electrically conductive material film. The illumination means mainly emits light having a wavelength of 460 nm or more.

[0006]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to P.
The DP back plate will be described as an example with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a simplified cross-sectional view simply showing the configuration of a PDP back plate, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of an embodiment.
FIG. 3 is a simplified diagram for briefly explaining a defect generated in a linear pattern electrode formed of a conductive material on a glass substrate, and FIG. 4 is a simplified diagram simply illustrating an inspection method. Is a simplified diagram for simply explaining signal processing, and FIG. 6 is a simplified diagram for simply explaining a defect correcting method. First, a basic configuration of a PDP will be briefly described with reference to FIG. The PDP 10 has a structure in which a partition 103 is provided on a dielectric layer 102 on which an address electrode 101 is disposed on a rear glass substrate 100, and RGB phosphor layers 104, 105, 106 are applied therebetween.
It has a configuration including a DP back plate 11, a dielectric layer 108 on which a display electrode 107 (displayed by rotating by 90 °) is disposed, and a front glass substrate 12 on which a protective film 109 is interposed.

Here, the light emission principle of the plasma display will be described. Display electrode 107 and address electrode 10
A gas mixture of neon and xenon is sealed in a space between the plasma 1 and the plasma 1 by applying a voltage thereto.
10 is generated, and the phosphor at the selected position emits light, and a desired color display is performed by a combination of the light emission of each phosphor.

Next, a method of manufacturing a flat display panel according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 2, taking a PDP back plate as an example. The method of manufacturing the PDP back plate of the present invention comprises:
Step 210 for washing and drying the glass substrate serving as the base of the DP back plate, Step 220 for forming a linear pattern electrode made of a conductive material, Step 230 for forming a dielectric film on the glass substrate, and Step 240 for forming partition walls And a step 250 of forming a phosphor layer between the partition walls. The linear pattern electrode forming step 220 will be described in detail. This step 220 includes a step 221 of applying a conductive material on a glass substrate on one side by screen printing or the like, a step 222 of drying the conductive material film, Step 223 for inspecting the conductive material film, means 224 for unloading the substrate based on the inspection result, step 225 for correcting a defect generated in the conductive material film, step 226 for processing the conductive material film into a linear pattern, and straight line The method comprises a step 227 of firing the pattern electrode. In particular, as a feature of the present invention, after the step 222 of drying the conductive material film,
Inspection of the conductive material film is performed in step 223, and a substrate in which no defect is found is sent to a subsequent step as it is, and a substrate in which a defect is found is taken out of the substrate carrying means 2
24 is carried out, a defective portion is corrected in a step 225, a non-defective product is regenerated, and the process is returned to a subsequent process. Next, FIG. 3 shows a defect generated in the linear pattern 31 formed of a conductive material on the glass substrate 100. The main defects that occur here are a disconnection defect 32 in a linear pattern and a short-circuit defect 33 in a linear pattern.
When a PDP is completed using a PDP back plate having these defects, it may cause serious defects such as image display unevenness and unlit cells. Inspection and correction are performed after the linear pattern is formed.

By the way, in the PDP back plate manufacturing process, a conductive material film is formed mainly by screen printing. The main cause of the linear pattern disconnection defect 32 generated in this case is a pinhole defect generated by clogging of a screen plate when a conductive material is applied on one surface of a glass substrate by screen printing. No. In the screen printing method, film formation is continuously performed on a plurality of substrates using a single screen plate. Therefore, once clogging occurs on the screen plate, pinhole defects are continuously provided on all substrates from that point. Will occur. Also, a short-circuit defect 33 of a linear pattern
The main cause of the generation is a defect due to a foreign substance attached to a glass substrate when a conductive material is applied on one surface by screen printing. Various cases can be considered as a cause of the foreign matter adhesion defect, such as a human body or equipment.

In the above prior art, since the inspection is performed after pattern processing is performed on the linear pattern electrode, the state of the conductive material film immediately after the film formation cannot be known. Therefore, as described above, when a continuous defect occurs during film formation, the substrate having the defect is sent in large quantities to the steps after pattern processing, and as a result, a linear pattern electrode as shown in FIG. Since a large number of substrates having disconnection defects and short-circuit defects are manufactured, it is difficult to secure the yield. The present invention detects a continuous defect quickly by inspecting and correcting defects before conducting pattern processing on a conductive material film, estimates a cause of a process abnormality from defect information, and immediately repairs the process, thereby improving the pattern. It is characterized in that defects occurring in the electrodes are prevented and the yield of products can be improved. Here, an inspection method for inspecting a conductive material film applied on one surface of a glass substrate will be described with reference to FIG. A glass substrate to be inspected 40 on which a conductive material film 43 is formed is arranged between an illuminating unit 41 and an imaging unit 42 in which light receiving elements are arranged one-dimensionally in the depth direction from the front of the drawing. The generated incident light 44 is vertically incident on the glass substrate to be inspected 40, and the transmitted light 45 transmitted through the conductive material film 43 and the glass substrate to be inspected 40 is imaged by the imaging means 42. At this time, the illumination means 41 and the imaging means 4
2 or at least one of the glass substrate 40 to be inspected is moved at a constant speed, and the transmitted light 45 is continuously imaged by the imaging means 42, whereby the entire glass substrate 40 to be inspected can be inspected. In order to move the illuminating means 41 and the imaging means 42, a moving means 46 such as a gantry stage is considered.
In order to move the substrate, for example, a substrate transfer means 47 such as a stage on which a substrate can be loaded and fixed and movable or a roller transfer device can be considered. A defect is determined based on the image information obtained by the imaging unit 42.

The above inspection method is characterized in that the illuminating means 41 mainly irradiates light outside the ultraviolet region, specifically, light having a wavelength of 460 nm or more. Therefore, the linear pattern electrode is formed by photolithography. The present invention is applicable to a conductive material film having photosensitivity used in the case of performing the process, since the photosensitivity of the conductive material is not affected. Further, in order to make the incident light 44 efficiently enter the glass substrate 40 to be inspected, it is desirable to attach a suitable reflector 48 around the illumination means 41.

A method for determining a defect from image information obtained by the image pickup means 42 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 5A shows the glass substrate to be inspected 40 having the above-described pinhole and foreign matter adhesion defect, and FIG. 5B shows a signal 53 obtained by the above-described inspection method. That is, as shown in FIG. 5B, the pinhole is formed from the AB line including the pinhole defect portion 51 and the foreign matter adhesion defect portion 52 of the conductive material film 43 applied on one surface of the glass substrate 40 to be inspected. A signal 53 that swings upward at the defective portion and swings downward at the foreign matter adhesion defective portion is obtained. For these signals, appropriate thresholds such as 54 and 55 are set to determine the defect.

Next, a method of correcting a defect based on the above-described inspection result will be described with reference to FIG. Conductive material film 4
3 is formed, and the glass substrate 40 on which at least one of the pinhole defect 51 and the foreign matter adhesion defect 52 exists is carried out from the production line by using the substrate carrying-out means 224 to the stage 61 for performing defect correction. Fix it. The conductive material film 43 formed on the exemplified glass substrate 40 has a pinhole defect 51 and a foreign matter adhesion defect 5.
2 is assumed to exist. Here, with respect to the pinhole defect 51, a liquid material 63 such as a metal complex solution, an ultrafine particle dispersion liquid, or a metal paste is applied to the pinhole defect portion by a liquid material application means 62 such as a glass pipette and corrected. Regarding the foreign matter adhesion defect 52, the pulse laser irradiation means 64 irradiates the defect portion with a pulse laser 65 to remove the foreign matter defect. Then, the metal complex solution, the ultra-fine particle dispersion,
Alternatively, a liquid material 63 such as a metal paste is applied to the defective portion and corrected. When the correction of one defect is completed, the next defect is corrected. When the correction of all the defects present on the substrate is completed, the substrate is subjected to a downstream process,
That is, it is sent to the pattern processing step.

As described above, the inspection of the conductive material film
By performing the correction, it is possible to prevent a defective product having a defect generated at the time of forming the conductive material film from being sent to a downstream process, and it is possible to improve the yield in the PDP back plate manufacturing process. The present invention is not limited to PDPs, but can be applied to the manufacture of other flat display panels such as LCDs.

[0015]

EXAMPLES The details of the present invention will be further described with reference to examples.

In the step shown in FIG. 2, a PDP back plate was manufactured. The conductive material film forming step 221 uses a screen printing method to inspect the conductive material film.
The inspection method shown in FIG. 4 was used for No. 3, and the repair method shown in FIG. 6 was used for the step 225 of correcting a defect generated in the conductive material film. In particular, the inspection method will be described in detail. A fluorescent lamp having no emission spectrum in a wavelength range of 460 nm or less is used as the certifying unit 41, a CCD line sensor camera is used as the imaging unit 42, and transmitted light transmitted through the substrate is used. 45 were imaged. In addition, in order to perform the inspection over the entire glass substrate, the glass substrate 40 to be inspected is moved at a constant speed.
The inspection was carried out using a roller conveyor.

As a result, clogging occurred in the screen plate in the conductive material film forming step, and a pinhole defect caused by the clogging occurred. This was detected by the above-described inspection method. The detected defective substrate was corrected using the above-described correction method, and the process was returned to the step of processing the conductive material film into a linear pattern. Also, clogging of the screen plate was removed based on the defect information, and the occurrence of continuous defects could be avoided with a minimum number of defects. Further, in the conductive material film forming step, a foreign matter adhesion defect caused by equipment occurred, which was detected by the above-described inspection method. The detected defective substrate was corrected using the above-described correction method, and the process was returned to the step of processing the conductive material film into a linear pattern.
In addition, the cleaning in the conductive material film forming step was performed based on the defect information, and the generation of continuous defects could be avoided with a minimum number of defects. From the above results, it was confirmed that the present invention greatly contributed to the improvement of the yield in the production of the PDP back plate.

[0018]

According to the present invention, in the process of manufacturing a flat display panel such as a PDP back plate, the occurrence of disconnection and short-circuit defects occurring in a linear pattern electrode made of a conductive material formed on a substrate is prevented. Was prevented before pattern processing, and the substrate in which a defect was found was immediately corrected, so that the overall yield could be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a simplified cross-sectional view simply showing a PDP back plate configuration.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a simplified diagram for simply explaining a defect generated in a linear pattern electrode.

FIG. 4 is a simplified diagram simply showing an inspection method.

FIG. 5 is a simplified diagram for simply explaining signal processing;

FIG. 6 is a simplified diagram for simply explaining a defect correction method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 PDP 11 PDP back plate 12 PDP front plate 100 Glass substrate 101 Address electrode 102 Dielectric layer 103 Partition wall 104 Phosphor layer 105 Phosphor layer 106 Phosphor layer 107 Display electrode 108 Dielectric layer 109 Protective film 110 Plasma 210 Glass substrate Washing and drying step 220 forming a linear pattern electrode 221 applying a conductive material film 222 drying the conductive material film 223 inspecting the conductive material film 224 means for unloading the substrate 225 defects Step of modifying 226 Step of processing the conductive material film into a linear pattern 227 Step of baking a linear pattern electrode 230 Step of forming a dielectric film 240 Step of forming a partition wall 250 Step of forming a phosphor layer 31 Linear Pattern electrode 32 Disconnection defect 33 Short circuit missing Reference Signs List 40 glass substrate to be inspected 41 illuminating means 42 imaging means 43 conductive material film 44 incident light 45 transmitted light 46 moving means 47 substrate transport means 48 reflector 51 pinhole defect 52 foreign matter adhesion defect 53 signal obtained by imaging 54 pinhole defect 55 for detecting foreign matter adhesion defect 61 Stage for fixing glass substrate 62 Liquid material applying means 63 Liquid material 64 Pulse laser irradiation means 65 Pulse laser

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5C012 AA09 BE03 5C040 FA01 GA09 GB03 GB14 JA26 MA23 MA26 5G435 AA17 AA19 BB06 BB12 EE34 KK05

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A step of forming a film made of a conductive material on a substrate, an inspection means for inspecting the conductive material film before a step of patterning the conductive material film, and unloading the substrate based on the inspection result. Manufacturing a flat display panel, comprising: a carry-out means; and a correcting means for correcting a defect generated in the conductive material film, and carrying out the substrate and correcting the defect based on an inspection result of the conductive material film. Method. 2. An inspecting means for inspecting a conductive material film includes an illuminating means and an imaging means in which light receiving elements are arranged one-dimensionally. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the illuminating unit and the imaging unit or the substrate to be inspected moves to measure transmitted light from the conductive material film to inspect the conductive material film. A method for manufacturing the flat display panel according to the above. 3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the illuminating means mainly emits light having a wavelength of 460 nm or more.