JP2008015383A - Liquid crystal display device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a liquid crystal display device in which a packaging area on an array substrate is not damaged by the glass broken material of a counter substrate. <P>SOLUTION: A spacer column 52 for maintaining a cell gap is formed in an effective display area 60, and a spacer column 54 for a dummy is formed in an unnecessary area of the counter substrate 14 facing the packaging area 62 of the array substrate. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device having a spacer column for maintaining a cell gap.

  In recent years, liquid crystal display devices have come to be used in various fields by taking advantage of light weight, thinness, and low power consumption. A liquid crystal display device in which a twisted nematic (TN) liquid crystal is held between a pair of substrates of the liquid crystal display device is widely used.

  By the way, in a liquid crystal display device, it is important to maintain a uniform cell gap (meaning an effective thickness of the liquid crystal layer) that is a gap between a pair of substrates in order to obtain a good display image without uneven coloring. For this reason, conventionally, spherical spacers have been dispersed on one substrate at a predetermined density, and the other substrate has been bonded onto this.

  However, in such a method of dispersing the spherical spacers, it is difficult to ensure the uniformity of the cell gap due to the condensation of the spherical spacers or the non-uniform distribution, and the display contrast due to light leakage by the spherical spacers. However, it was difficult to improve.

Therefore, in order to solve this problem, conventionally, as shown in FIG. 6, spacer columns 110 are formed on the counter substrate 104 with the same material as each color of the color filter layer at predetermined positions. A method of forming spacer columns made of resin or the like different from the filter layer has been proposed (see, for example, Patent Documents 1 and 2).
JP-A-9-73093 JP 9-73088 A

  By the way, the liquid crystal cell of the liquid crystal display device is manufactured by a multi-chamfer method in which a plurality of liquid crystal cells are arranged on a pair of substrates and cut out. When arranging and cutting out a plurality of liquid crystal cells in such a multi-chamfering method, it is necessary to remove an excess portion (hereinafter, glass broken material) of the counter substrate.

  However, the glass breakage material on the counter substrate is also located in the mounting area where the driving LSI on the array substrate is mounted. When the glass breakage material is removed, the wiring in the mounting area on the array substrate is routed to the glass breakage. There is a problem of being damaged by the material.

  That is, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, in the multi-chamfer method, the array substrate 101 of the liquid crystal cell 100 is provided with an L-shaped mounting region 102. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 7A, in the counter substrate 104, the portion corresponding to the mounting region 102 is an unnecessary region 106, and thus it is necessary to remove it as a glass broken material. When removing this, as shown in FIG. 7B, there is a problem that the unnecessary area 106 comes into contact with the mounting area 102 of the array substrate 100 and damages the wiring 108 on the mounting area 102.

  Accordingly, in view of the above problems, the present invention provides a liquid crystal display device in which a mounting region on an array substrate is not damaged by a glass breakage material of a counter substrate.

  The present invention provides an array substrate in which a plurality of display pixels are arranged in a matrix, a counter substrate disposed to face the array substrate, and a frame-shaped sealing member that is held between the pair of substrates. A light modulation layer made of a liquid crystal material sealed by a plurality of cell gap maintaining spacer columns formed on the counter substrate and maintaining a cell gap of the pair of substrates, and the array substrate includes: In a liquid crystal display device comprising: an effective display area composed of the plurality of display pixels; and a mounting area that is located on the outer periphery of the effective display area and in which a driving LSI is disposed. A plurality of cell gap maintaining spacer pillars are formed in the area of the counter substrate facing the display area, and a plurality of dirt is formed in the area of the counter substrate facing the mounting area of the array substrate. Is a liquid crystal display device characterized that use spacers are formed.

  According to the present invention, the mounting area of the array substrate is not damaged by the plurality of dummy spacers.

  Hereinafter, a liquid crystal display device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

(First embodiment)
Hereinafter, a liquid crystal cell 10 of a liquid crystal display device according to a first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

(1) Configuration of Liquid Crystal Display Device 10 The configuration of the liquid crystal cell 10 will be described.

  The liquid crystal cell 10 includes an array substrate 12 and a counter substrate 14. A plurality of signal lines 16 are arranged in parallel on the array substrate 12, and a plurality of scanning lines 18 are arranged so as to be orthogonal to the signal lines 16. A thin film transistor (hereinafter referred to as TFT) 20 is formed near the intersection of the signal line 16 and the scanning line 18.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the TFT 20 is, for example, an inverted stagger type, and the gate electrode 24 is disposed on the TFT 20 on the main surface side of the glass substrate 22, and the scanning line 18 is disposed on the wiring portion. The insulating film 26 is laminated. A semiconductor film 28 made of amorphous silicon is formed on the insulating film 26 and above the gate electrode 24, and the source electrode 30 and the drain electrode 32 are formed over the semiconductor film 28 so as to straddle the semiconductor film 28 and the insulating film 26. It is arranged so as to face the central part at a predetermined distance. A signal line 16 is connected to the drain electrode 32 and a pixel electrode 34 is connected to the source electrode 30. A protective film 36 is formed on the entire surface of the TFT 20 and the wiring portion, and an alignment film 38 is formed on the entire surface of the pixel portion.

  A plurality of wirings 64 for connecting to the driving LSI are formed in the L-shaped mounting region 62 of the array substrate 12.

  The counter substrate 14 is formed with red, green, and blue color filters 42, 44, and 46 formed on the glass substrate 40 in accordance with pixel positions. A black matrix 50 is formed in a matrix between the color filters 42, 44 and 46. On the black matrix 50, cell gap maintaining spacer columns 52 and dummy spacer columns 54 formed of the same material as the color filter layers 42, 44, 46 are formed. The spacer columns 52 and 54 will be described in detail later. A transparent electrode 47 and an alignment film 51 are formed.

  The array substrate 12 and the counter substrate 14 are arranged with a liquid crystal layer 56 as a light modulation layer interposed therebetween. The liquid crystal layer 56 is sealed by a seal member 58 formed in a frame shape between the pair of substrates 12 and 14.

(2) Structure of Spacer Columns 52 and 54 Next, the cell gap maintaining spacer column 52 and the dummy spacer column 54 will be described with reference to FIGS.

As described above, the spacer columns 52 and 54 are made of the same material as the color filter layers 42, 44 and 46. The spacer columns 52 for maintaining the cell gap are arranged inside the seal member 58 and uniformly arranged in a matrix in the effective display area 60 where the display pixels are formed. The thickness of the cell gap maintaining spacer column 52 is about 100 μm ² .

On the other hand, the dummy spacer column 54 is formed on the outer periphery from the position of the seal member 58 when divided by the multi-chamfering method and inside the color filter layer cut by the multi-chamfering method. The dummy spacer columns 54 are arranged in a matrix at equal intervals, and the thickness thereof is larger than that of the cell gap maintaining spacer columns 52 and is about 250 μm ² .

(3) Effect The effect of disposing the dummy spacer column 54 as described above will be described.

  The counter substrate 14 is disposed on the array substrate 12 to form the liquid crystal cell 10, and a liquid crystal material is injected between the pair of substrates 12 and 14. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 2A, the unnecessary region 66 of the counter substrate 14 facing the mounting region 62 of the array substrate 12 is removed as a broken glass material. In this case, since the dummy spacer column 54 is provided in the unnecessary region 66 as shown in FIG. 2B, the tip of the dummy spacer column 54 is connected to the wiring 64 in the mounting region 62 of the array substrate 12. Will be in contact with each other, and the broken glass material in the unnecessary area 66 will not be in direct contact. Therefore, the wiring 64 in the mounting area 62 is not damaged unlike the conventional case.

(Second Embodiment)
Next, the liquid crystal cell 10 of the liquid crystal display device according to the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

  In the first embodiment, the dummy spacer column 54 is formed in a column shape, but the dummy spacer 68 of this embodiment is a counter substrate facing the mounting region 62 of the array substrate 12 as shown in FIG. It is formed in a planar shape on 14 L-shaped unnecessary regions 66.

  Even with the planar dummy spacer 68 as described above, when the unnecessary region 66 is removed, the broken glass material is not damaged without directly contacting the wiring 64.

(Example of change)
The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the gist thereof.

  In the above embodiment, the cell gap maintaining spacer column 52 and the dummy spacer column 54 are formed of the same material as that of the color filter layers 42, 44, and 46.

It is a top view of the opposing board | substrate of the liquid crystal cell of the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is the longitudinal cross-sectional view of a liquid crystal cell similarly, (a) is a state before removing an unnecessary area | region, (b) is a thing of the state which removed the unnecessary area | region. It is a partially expanded longitudinal cross-sectional view of a liquid crystal cell. It is a top view of the opposing board | substrate of the liquid crystal cell of 2nd Embodiment. It is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the liquid crystal cell of 2nd Embodiment, (a) is a thing before removing an unnecessary area | region, (b) is a thing of the state which removed the unnecessary area | region. It is a top view of the counter substrate of the conventional liquid crystal cell. It is the longitudinal cross-sectional view of the conventional liquid crystal cell, Comprising: (a) is a state before removing an unnecessary area | region, (b) is a state in which the glass broken material was removed.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Liquid crystal cell 12 Array substrate 14 Opposite substrate 42-46 Color filter 52 Cell gap maintenance spacer pillar 54 Dummy spacer pillar 58 Sealing member 60 Effective display area 62 Mounting area 64 Wiring 66 Unnecessary area

Claims (6)

An array substrate on which a plurality of display pixels are arranged in a matrix;
A counter substrate disposed to face the array substrate;
A light modulation layer made of a liquid crystal material held between the pair of substrates and sealed by a frame-shaped sealing member;
A plurality of cell gap maintaining spacer columns formed on the counter substrate and maintaining a cell gap of the pair of substrates;
Have
In the liquid crystal display device, the array substrate includes an effective display area composed of the plurality of display pixels, and a mounting area that is located on the outer periphery of the effective display area and in which the driving LSI is disposed.
A plurality of cell gap maintaining spacer pillars are formed in the area of the counter substrate facing the effective display area of the array substrate,
A plurality of dummy spacers are formed in a region of the counter substrate facing the mounting region of the array substrate. A color filter layer is formed on the counter substrate;
The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1, wherein the cell gap maintaining spacer and the dummy spacer column are formed integrally with the color filter layer. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1, wherein the dummy spacer has a columnar shape and is thicker than the cell gap maintaining spacer column. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1, wherein the dummy spacers are columnar and are formed at regular intervals. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1, wherein the dummy spacer is formed in a planar shape over the entire area of the counter substrate that faces the mounting area. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 2, wherein the dummy spacer is formed inside the cut end surface of the color filter layer and outside the seal member.

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