JPH0256654B2 - - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a photographic method for positioning a photographic film with respect to a liquid photoresist used for etching resist, plating resist, solder resist, etc. when exposing the liquid photoresist to light. This invention relates to a filmset device.

[Technical background of the invention]

The patterns of current printed circuit boards are becoming increasingly dense, and manufacturing of these high-density printed circuit boards requires
Dry film resist is normally used due to its advantages in quality control, but this dry film also has drawbacks such as high material costs and difficulty in fully automation, especially dry film for solder resist.
As patterns become more dense, the film resist does not adhere completely to the substrate surface, which may cause soldering defects.

Therefore, there has been an active movement to use liquid photoresist for printed circuit boards in the same way as in LSI processes.

For example, WR Grace, an American chemical manufacturer, has
A liquid photoresist is applied to a uniform thickness on the substrate, and then a photo film having a circuit pattern is placed on the liquid photoresist with an extremely small uniform gap in an off-contact manner. The liquid photoresist is exposed to a light beam, the liquid photoresist is cured according to the circuit pattern of the photographic film, the uncured liquid photoresist is removed, and the exposed metal is removed by etching. , developed a printed circuit board manufacturing method that removes the cured photoresist at the end.

This method of manufacturing printed circuit boards using liquid photoresist is suitable for increasing the density of circuit patterns, and has the advantage of being able to fully automate the manufacturing line and requiring low material costs.

[Problems with background technology]

However, in order to carry out this printed circuit board manufacturing method using liquid photoresist, a highly accurate resist coating device and exposure device are required. Particularly in exposure equipment, the gap between the liquid photoresist and the photographic film is required to be small and uniform over the entire surface, but there has been no conventional device that can satisfactorily meet this requirement. .

[Purpose of the invention]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus that can accurately set a photographic film against a liquid photoresist during exposure.

[Summary of the invention]

The photographic film set device in the liquid photoresist processing apparatus of the present invention places a photographic film in an off-contact manner with a slight uniform gap on the liquid photoresist that has been uniformly applied to a substrate, and passes the liquid photoresist through the photographic film. In a liquid photoresist processing device that hardens liquid photoresist in accordance with the pattern of a photographic film by exposing the resist to light, locking pins are provided protruding from each of a plurality of stable support positions of a frame member that is moved up and down. A glass frame is fitted to each of the locking pins so as to be movable up and down, a glass plate for adsorbing the photographic film is integrally provided on the glass frame, and height fine adjustment bodies are respectively provided at a plurality of stable support positions of the glass frame. The lower end of each height fine adjustment body is brought into contact with the upper surface of the surface plate on which the board is positioned and supported, so that the vertically moved frame member slightly overruns the position where it should descend and stop. Even when the height adjustment body is in contact with the top surface of the surface plate as a stopper, the entire glass plate can be positioned at a predetermined height on the surface plate. The slight gap between the liquid photoresist and the liquid photoresist is always constant and uniform over the entire surface.
can be maintained. Further, in the device of the present invention, a slight gap in the horizontal direction is provided at the fitting portion between the locking pin and the glass frame, and a plurality of horizontal gaps are provided on the lower surface of the glass frame that fit with the plurality of positioning portions on the surface plate side. It is equipped with a direction positioning part, and by fitting both positioning parts, the glass frame can be positioned horizontally with respect to the surface plate. Therefore, this photo shows the substrate and the bottom surface of the glass plate positioned and supported on the surface plate. Horizontal positioning between the film and the film is possible.

[Embodiments of the invention]

The present invention will be described below with reference to embodiments shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a part of a liquid photoresist processing apparatus, in which a transfer machine (not shown) supplies one substrate from a large number of stacked substrates 1 onto a conveyor 2, and a static eliminator 3 removes static electricity. After removing dust, this substrate is transferred to roller coater 4.
The liquid photoresist 7 supplied between the rollers 5 and 6 is applied over the entire surface of the substrate to a uniform thickness. The liquid photoresist 7 is an ultraviolet curable liquid resin composition (also called UV ink), and has the property of being cured by being exposed to ultraviolet light. Next, this substrate is sent to an exposure device 10 via a conveyor 9 having an ultraviolet protection cover 8.

This exposure device 10 includes a pre-exposure device 11, an ultraviolet irradiation device 12, and a photographic film set device 13.
, a surface plate 14 on the lower side thereof, and a conveyor 15 that is movable up and down.
on the liquid photoresist applied to the top surface of the
A photographic film (negative film) having a circuit pattern is placed in off-contact with an extremely small uniform gap of about 0.2 to 0.5 mm across the entire surface, and then parallel ultraviolet rays are applied to this photographic film to form the liquid photo film. The resist is exposed to light, and the liquid photoresist is hardened in accordance with the circuit pattern of the photographic film.

The board onto which the circuit pattern has been transferred in this manner is transferred to a conveyor 18 having an ultraviolet protection cover 17.
After that, it is sent to a development and water washing process (not shown) to remove uncured liquid photoresist, and then sent to a UV curing oven after a drying process, where it is further cured by post-exposure, and then sent to an etching process.
The exposed metal is removed by etching and finally the hardened photoresist is removed.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the photographic film setting device 13 includes vertical motion bearings 22 mounted on vertical motion guides 21 fixed at four locations on the left, right, front, and rear.
The U-shaped outer frame 23 is attached vertically movably through the outer frame 23, and the left and right chains 24, whose inner ends are connected to the center of the left and right parts of the outer frame 23, are wound around the left and right upper sprockets 25. chain 24
A balance weight 26 is provided at the outer end of the sprocket 25, and the left and right sprockets 25 are moved in opposite directions by a motor 27 with a brake and an interlocking rod 28 through engagement with the left and right worm reducers 29 and gears 30, 31. As a result, the inner ends of the left and right chains 24 are simultaneously moved up and down, and the outer frame 23 is moved up and down.

Next, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, sliding units 34 are provided in the front and rear directions inside the left and right portions of the outer frame 23 when viewed from the side where the photographic film is mounted. This slide unit 34 has a slide rail slidably fitted to a guide rail fixed to the outer frame 23, and drawer rails 35 in the front and back direction are attached to the slide rails on both the left and right sides.
A rear part of a link 37 is rotatably attached to the rear part of the drawer rails 35 on both sides via a horizontal shaft 36, and a photo film for holding photographic film is connected between the front parts of the links 37 on both sides via a horizontal shaft 38. The left and right side surfaces of the relatively front side of the photo tool 39 are rotatably attached, and rollers 40 rolling on the rails 35 are rotatably attached to the left and right side surfaces of the relatively rear side of the photo tool 39. The roller 4 is placed on the relatively front side of the rail 35.
A stopper 41 for locking the 0 is provided. Note that rollers 42 supported by the rails 35 are also pivotally attached to the left and right side surfaces of the relatively front portion of the photo tool 39, but these do not need to be rollers.

The photo tool 39 projects into an inversion frame 45 that is moved up and down integrally with the outer frame 23 and inverted around the front transverse axis 38, and at a plurality of stable support positions on the lower surface of the inversion frame 45. A glass frame 48 is fitted to a provided locking pin 46 via an L-shaped plate 47 so as to be vertically movable, and a large number of locking claws 50 are positioned on this glass frame 48 by two positioning pins 49. Glass plate 5 provided integrally with
It is composed of a plurality of members such as 1. As shown in FIG. 5, the glass plate 51 attracts a photographic film (negative film) 52 on its lower surface.

The glass frame 48 is provided with a micrometer head 55 as a height fine adjustment body at each of its plurality of stable support positions, as shown in FIG.
The lower end of the movable shaft portion 56 of each micrometer head 55 is brought into contact with the upper surface of the surface plate 14 on which the substrate 1 is positioned and supported.

Therefore, even if the reversing frame 45 slightly overruns the lowering and stopping position due to the difficulty of controlling the motor 27, the micrometer heads 5
5 comes into contact with the top surface of the surface plate 14 as a stopper,
The entire glass plate 51 can be positioned at a predetermined height on the surface plate, so that the distance between the photographic film 52 on the lower surface of the glass plate 51 and the liquid photoresist 57 coated on the substrate 1 is approximately 0.2 to 0.5 mm. The small gaps 58 can be kept constant and evenly spaced over the entire surface.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 5, a slight gap 61 is provided in the horizontal direction at the fitting portion between the locking pin 46 of the reversing frame 45 and the L-shaped plate 47 of the glass frame 48. As shown in the figure, two pins 63 as horizontal positioning portions are protrudingly provided on the lower surface of the glass frame 48 to fit into hole grooves 62 as two positioning portions of the surface plate 14. Then, by fitting the tapered pin tip of the pin 63 of the glass frame 48 into the hole groove 62 of the surface plate 14, the glass frame 48 can be accurately positioned in the horizontal direction with respect to the surface plate 14. Furthermore, the substrate 1 is conveyed to the surface plate 14 by a vertical conveyor 15 shown in FIG.
As the glass frame 48, the glass plate 51, and the photographic film on the lower surface of the glass plate are fitted to the two positioning pins 64 on the surface plate shown in FIG. 5
2, the horizontal positioning can also be performed accurately.

As shown in FIG. 6, the glass plate 51 is provided with an endless groove 65 on its lower surface.
A vacuum pump is connected to a suction hole 66 formed in a part of 5 through a tube (not shown). Then,
The photographic film 52 is held in close contact with the glass plate 51 by the vacuum suction effect of the groove 65.

Next, when loading the photographic film 52 onto the glass plate 51, as shown in FIG. The photo tool 39 is pulled out from the outer frame 23 by the action of the slide unit 34, and the photo tool 39 is pulled out from the outer frame 23 by the action of the slide unit 34.
When the photo tool 3 is pulled up, the link 37 is rotated upward around the rear horizontal axis 36, and the photo tool 3 is rotated upward around the front horizontal axis 38, which is raised by the rotation of the link 37.
9 is raised while rotating. At the same time, the rear roller 40 is moved forward on the rail 35. When the roller 40 is below the front horizontal shaft 38, the handle 67 is tilted backward, and the lower surface of the photo tool 39, that is, the lower surface of the glass plate 51, is slightly lower than the operator, as shown in FIG. The roller 40 is turned diagonally upward so as to face the user, and in this state the roller 40 is stopped by a stopper 41. In this way, the glass plate 51 is inverted to the most suitable position for the operator to attach the photographic film 52 to the lower surface of the glass plate 51. Moreover, the operator can do this by pulling up the glass plate 51 while pulling the handle 67, and moving it slightly backward. It is easy to press and has good workability.

Since the micrometer head 55 is used as a height fine adjustment member for the glass frame 48, there is an advantage that the gap between the film 52 and the liquid photoresist 57 can be adjusted and changed very easily.

Finally, although the above embodiments have been described with respect to the etching resist method, the photographic film setting apparatus of the present invention can be similarly utilized in the plating resist method or the solder resist method.

For example, in the Metsuki resist method, a liquid photoresist is applied to a substrate, a photographic film is placed on top of the liquid photoresist using this device, and the liquid photoresist is exposed to parallel light through the photographic film, so that the liquid photoresist does not harden. The liquid photoresist is removed, the exposed metal surface of the portion from which the liquid photoresist has been removed is metal plated, the cured liquid photoresist is then removed, and the exposed metal of the portion from which the cured resist has been removed is removed.

Furthermore, in the solder resist method, a liquid photoresist is applied to a substrate, a photographic film is placed on top of the liquid photoresist using this device, and the liquid photoresist is exposed to parallel light through the photographic film, so that the liquid photoresist does not harden. The liquid photoresist is removed and solder is applied to the exposed metal surface where the resist is removed.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, the glass frame is vertically movably fitted to the locking pin provided on the vertically movable frame member, and the height fine adjustment body is provided at a plurality of stable support positions of the glass frame, so that the motor control Even if the frame member that is moved up and down slightly overshoots the position where it should descend and stop due to the difficulty of moving up and down or the inertia of the up and down moving members, the height fine adjustment unit allows the photographic film on the bottom surface of the glass plate and the liquid photoresist on the substrate to be adjusted. The spacing accuracy of the small gap between the two can be set uniformly and with high precision over the entire surface. Furthermore, the present invention provides a slight gap in the horizontal direction at the fitting portion between the locking pin and the glass frame, and also includes a plurality of horizontal positioning portions on the lower surface of the glass frame that fit with the positioning portions on the surface plate side. Since these are provided, the horizontal positioning between the substrate on the surface plate and the photographic film on the lower surface of the glass plate can also be performed with high accuracy by fitting them.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The figures relate to the photographic filmset apparatus of the present invention, in which FIG. 1 is a front view showing a part of the liquid photoresist processing system, and FIG.
A line sectional view, Figure 3 is a - line sectional view of Figure 2,
Figure 4 is a cross-sectional view taken along the - line in Figure 3, and Figure 5 is a cross-sectional view of Figure 4.
FIG. 6 is an enlarged sectional view of a part of the figure and a perspective view of the glass plate. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Substrate, 14... Surface plate, 45... Frame member that can be moved up and down, 46... Locking pin, 48... Glass frame, 51... Glass plate, 52... Photographic film,
55...Micrometer head as height fine adjustment body, 57...Liquid photoresist, 58...Gap, 61...Gap, 62...Hole groove as positioning part, 63...Pin as horizontal positioning part .

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A photographic film is placed off-contact with a slight uniform gap on a liquid photoresist that has been uniformly applied to a substrate, and the liquid photoresist is exposed through the photographic film to form a liquid photoresist. In a liquid photoresist processing device that hardens photoresist according to the pattern of a photographic film, locking pins are provided protrudingly at a plurality of stable support positions of a frame member that is moved up and down, and a glass frame is attached to each locking pin. are fitted to be movable up and down, a glass plate for adsorbing the photographic film is integrally provided in this glass frame, height fine adjustment bodies are provided at each of a plurality of stable support positions of the glass frame, and the height of each of these 1. A photographic filmset device for a liquid photoresist processing apparatus, characterized in that a lower end of a fine adjustment member is brought into contact with an upper surface of a surface plate for positioning and supporting the substrate. 2. A photographic film set device in a liquid photoresist processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the height fine adjustment body is a micrometer head. 3. A photographic film is placed off-contact with a slight uniform gap on a liquid photoresist that has been uniformly applied to a substrate, and the liquid photoresist is exposed to light through the photographic film. In a liquid photoresist processing device that cures according to a pattern, locking pins are provided protruding from each of a plurality of stable support positions of a frame member that is moved up and down, and a glass frame is fitted to each of these locking pins so as to be able to move up and down. A glass plate for adsorbing the photographic film is integrally provided on the glass frame, height fine adjustment bodies are respectively provided at a plurality of stable support positions of the glass frame, and the lower end of each of the height fine adjustment bodies is connected to the The board is placed in contact with the top surface of the surface plate that positions and supports the board, a slight gap is provided in the horizontal direction at the fitting part between the locking pin and the glass frame, and the bottom surface of the glass frame is placed on the surface plate side. 1. A photographic filmset device in a liquid photoresist processing apparatus, characterized in that a plurality of horizontal positioning portions are provided which fit into a plurality of positioning portions.