JPH06138166A - Liquid crystal inspection device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To measure the electric characteristics of a high density liquid crystal display base plate by using the bump of film base plate as a contact. CONSTITUTION:A chuck 4 mounting a liquid crystal display (LCD) 1 is positioned by drive control in X-Y and theta directions. Then, the chuck 4 is elevated more than the preset overdrive stroke until the electrode pad of the LCD 1 touches a contact bump 12 of a probe card 5 at the position facing the chuck 4. At this moment, an operator can confirm by sight the pattern on the LCD 1 and the bump 12 with a microscope placed above and measures the electric characteristics of the LCD 1 with an external tester. As the bump contact 12 placed at the film is produced by copper pattern formation by etching and hole fabrication and bump formation with molding jig and the like, production is easy and the cost is drastically lowered.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a liquid crystal inspecting apparatus for measuring and inspecting electrical characteristics after forming a liquid crystal pattern in a liquid crystal display substrate (LCD) manufacturing process.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Liquid crystal display substrates (LCDs)
The liquid crystal inspecting device used in the inspecting process in the manufacturing field has already been disclosed in JP-A-2-229450 and JP-A-2-224261.
And JP-A-1-127973. In JP-A-2-229450, the contact of the probe card is a film electrode (Flexible).
A Print Circuit is supported (fixed) on a substrate, one end of the supported film electrode (FPC) is curled, and a flexible member such as a felt is mounted inside the curled space for measurement. The technology is disclosed. In recent years, FPC films having bump-shaped metal protrusions have been developed. This film is disclosed in JP-A-3-2.
66306, JP-A-4-10696, and JP-A-3-2.
It is disclosed in many publications such as 93566 and JP-A-3-46262.

Recently (1) liquid crystal display substrate (hereinafter referred to as L
(CD) has a screen size of 10 ″, the gate side has 480 pins, the drain side has 640 × 3 spike pins, and the line pitches are 300 μm and 100 μm, respectively.
The probe of the probe card is arranged so as to correspond to the multi-pin electrode pad, and the substrate is measured.

(2) In order to increase the size of the liquid crystal display screen (that is, to increase the size of the LCD) and display resolution, the VGA system is shifting to the XGA system. Therefore, the screen size is 12 ″ and the number of pins is 768 each. Pin, 1
The number of pins will increase by 024 × 3, and the screen size and the number of pins will tend to increase significantly in order to support EWS displays in the future.

(3) In general, in a probe card to be brought into contact with the electrode pad of the LCD, a contact needle made of a metal such as tungsten is soldered to a glass epoxy substrate, and a contact end having a polished free end is located at the electrode pad of the LCD. Are aligned on a straight line.

(4) In a liquid crystal display substrate with a line pitch of about 200 μm, a spring pin (pogo pin) is used as a contact needle, and a probe card having a structure in which it is pressed against an electrode pad by the elasticity of a built-in spring is used. In some cases.

(5) The electrode pads on the LCD generally use ITO (an indium and tin oxide alloy),
The surface is hard to oxidize, and it is not necessary to break through the natural oxide film on the pad surface with the tip of the probe card needle, unlike the electrodes of general semiconductor chips. Further, there are some cases where aluminum electrodes are used, but this is extremely rare.

[0008]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

(1) Multi-pin narrow line pitch (100 μm pitch, which is required for high resolution liquid crystal display substrates)
(50 μm width).

(2) For the probe card with a large number of pins and a narrow pitch, various proposals other than the tungsten method have been proposed, but all of them are not feasible because of complicated manual work. Even if it can be realized in principle, it is unrealistic because the manufacturing cost becomes extremely high.

(3) In the measurement of the liquid crystal display substrate, when the spring pin is used as a contact,
The spring pins are brought into contact with the electrode pads, and each spring pin slides every time the overdrive is applied. As a result, the particles drop on the substrate and the display element (TF
There is a drawback that T) is deteriorated. In view of the above problems, a first object of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive liquid crystal inspection device capable of measuring the electrical characteristics of a high density liquid crystal display substrate by using bumps of a film substrate as contacts. . A second object of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal inspecting device capable of performing measurement with a structure in which particles are not deposited on a liquid crystal display substrate when a spring pin is used.

[0011]

[Constitution of the invention]

In a liquid crystal inspection device having a contactor for contacting an electrode pad formed on a liquid crystal display substrate, and measuring electrical characteristics of the liquid crystal display substrate through the contactor, A flexible film substrate having bump contacts corresponding to the electrode pads,
A liquid crystal inspection device comprising: a cylindrical elastic member whose surface is covered by the film substrate; and a substrate for fixing the film substrate so that the bump contacts uniformly contact the electrode pads. On the back surface side of the bump contactor, a conductive terminal electrically connected to the contactor and a spring probe elastically contacting the conductive terminal are provided, and the electrical conductivity of the liquid crystal display substrate is provided through the spring probe. The liquid crystal inspection device according to claim 1, wherein the characteristic is measured and inspected.

[0012]

In the liquid crystal inspection device of the present invention, the prober
Since the film substrate with the bump contactor is arranged on the substrate of the LCD via the elastic member, at least the line width of the electrode pad of the liquid crystal display substrate and the diameter of the bump contactor are smaller than the width of the electrode pad of the liquid crystal display substrate. it can. Therefore, the width and pitch interval of the electrode pads can be reduced as compared with the conventional one. Therefore, it also has the function of supporting a high-density circuit liquid crystal display substrate. The bump contact provided on the FPC film is a copper pattern by etching.
The same product can be mass-produced because it is manufactured by forming holes, forming holes with a jig, and forming bumps. That is, the bump contact provided on the FPC film is easily manufactured, which leads to a large reduction in manufacturing cost.

Moreover, in the liquid crystal inspection device of the present invention,
An electrically conductive electrode terminal is provided on the back side surface of the bump contactor (the surface opposite to the surface where the bump contactor contacts the LCD, that is, the surface which directly contacts the elastic member), and contacts this electrode terminal. By disposing the spring probe in this manner and electrically connecting it to an external tester through the spring probe, particles from the sliding of the spring probe are deposited on the FPC film. However, since it does not deposit on the LCD surface, it does not deteriorate the display element on the LCD substrate.

[0014]

Embodiment 1 An embodiment of a probe card in which the liquid crystal inspection device of the present invention is attached to the LCD inspection device will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIG. 5, the LCD inspecting apparatus described above is arranged such that the cassette 2 in which a plurality of LCD boards are housed is L-shaped.
One CD 1 is taken out, conveyed to a chuck 4 (driving controllable in the circumferential (Φ) direction and Z direction) fixed to an XY stage 3 (driving controllable in the XY direction), and fixed. It
A probe card 5 is fixed to the main body side at a position opposite to the chuck 4 (at this time, the probe card 5 may be attached via the head plate member 6).
As for the contact of the LCD 1, when the LCD 1 reaches a predetermined position,
By being driven in the Z direction, the measurement object comes into contact with the electrode pad of the LCD 1 to be measured, and the electrical characteristics of the LCD 1 are measured by an external tester. The measured LCD 1 is a measuring device which is returned to the cassette 2 and sequentially measures new LCD substrates.

As shown in FIG. 1, the probe card 5 has a bumped film C substrate 9 bonded to the bottom surface of a bumped film substrate fixing guide 7 via an adhesive layer 8. At the end of the film substrate 9 with bumps, a cylindrical elastic member (which may be an ellipse or a prism, that is, as long as the bumps make accurate contact with the electrode pads), for example, a felt material 10, is formed on the LCD 1. It is arranged along the arrangement direction of the electrode pads 11. As mentioned above, felt 1
The film substrate 9 with bumps is arranged so as to be wound around 0, and the film substrate 9 with bumps is bonded in a cylindrical shape to the end of the film substrate 9 via the adhesive layer 8. The plurality of bumps 12 on the film substrate 9 are arranged corresponding to the positions of the electrode pads 13 of the LCD 1.

The film substrate is, as shown in FIG.
A bump forming area 14 is provided at one end of a film substrate having a copper pattern (inside) having a length of, for example, 20 cm.
Corresponds to the position of the electrode pad 14 of the LCD 1 and has a "glue margin" for winding and fixing the felt material 10. A relay connector 15 is provided at the other end, and has a structure in which it is electrically connected to an external tester (not shown) via the connector 15.

As shown in FIG. 3, the film substrate having the above-described structure is attached to a fixed substrate 7, which is fixed to a vertical adjustment mechanism 16 and is further provided in the main body of the inspection device.

The electrode pads 11 of the LCD 1 are arranged in a straight line along the periphery, for example, along four sides. This is a structure in which the film substrate 9 with the bumps 12 is wound around a cylindrical elastic member. In this case, the bumps 12 on the film substrate 9 are arranged in a straight line.

Next, the operation will be described. In the LCD inspection device shown in FIG. 5, the chuck 4 on which the LCD 1 is mounted is positioned by drive control in the XY direction and the θ direction. Next, the chuck 4 is raised until the electrode pad 11 of the LCD 1 comes into contact with the contact of the probe card 5 in a position opposite to the chuck 4, that is, the bump 12, and the preset overdrive amount. Raise about 50 μm or more. At this time, the operator is the microscope installed at the top.
The pattern (not shown) allows the pattern and the pump 12 on the LCD substrate to be visually confirmed. The electrical characteristics of the LCD 1 are measured by an external tester.

[0021]

[Embodiment 2] As shown in FIG. 2, the probe card 5 has a bumped film substrate 9 with a bumped film substrate fixing guide (not shown) via an adhesive layer (not shown).
Are glued together. At the end of the film substrate 9 with bumps, conductive terminals 16 (copper members) that are electrically connected to the bumps are printed on the surface opposite to the bump surface side. The conductive terminal 1
6, the spring probe 17 corresponding to 6 is the film substrate 9
It is provided in a direction substantially orthogonal to the plane and electrically connected to an external tester (not shown).

Next, the operation will be described. In the LCD inspection apparatus shown in FIG. 5, alignment is performed by driving the chuck 4 on which the LCD 1 is placed in the XY direction θ direction. The LCD 1 is attached to the contact of the probe card 5 in the position opposite to the chuck 4, that is, the bump 12.
The chuck 4 is raised until the electrode pad 11 of 1 comes into contact with the electrode pad 11. When the bump 12 comes into contact with the corresponding electrode pad 11 and raises the preset overdrive amount by about 50 μm or more, the spring probe 17 contracts by about 50 μm or more. The particles generated by this sliding at the time of contraction measure the electrical characteristics of the LCD 1 while being deposited on the film substrate. However, since this particle is not deposited on the LCD substrate, accurate measurement can be performed.

Effects of Embodiments (1) The liquid crystal display substrate is provided with holes in a polyimide film with a copper foil, and bumps are formed with nickel or the like.
By plating (plating) with gold, it is possible to provide a low-priced probe card using multi-pin, narrow-pitch contacts. (2) A spring probe is installed as an elastic member, and the tip of the spring probe is brought into pressure contact with a conductive terminal on the back side of the film substrate with bumps. The spring probe is a bump on the film substrate. It is possible to realize a highly reliable measurement of the LCD substrate by using it as a current-carrying member for an electrical signal between the connector and the connector pin for connecting to the tester.

[0024]

[Third Embodiment] FIGS. 6 and 7 showing another embodiment of the present invention.
Will be explained. In the drawings, the same parts are given the same numbers. A bump row formed of a plurality of bumps 12 corresponding to the electrode pads 11 on the LCD substrate 1 is provided on the film substrate 9. An edge portion of the film substrate 9 located at a facing portion of the electrode pad 11 has a cylindrical (elliptical or prismatic) elastic member, such as a felt material 10, a film substrate fixing substrate 7, and an LCD substrate. It is arranged along the arrangement direction of one electrode pad 11. The other edge of the film substrate 9 is adhered to the film substrate fixing substrate 7 by the adhesive layer 8.
The inspection apparatus configured as described above is capable of reliably holding contact by securely deforming the felt 10 when the bumps 12 on the film substrate 9 come into contact with the electrode pads 11 on the LCD substrate 1, and the LCD substrate 1 The elastic contact with 1 has the effect of not damaging.

[0025]

[Fourth Embodiment] FIGS. 8 and 9 showing another embodiment of the present invention.
Will be explained. In the drawings, the same parts are given the same numbers. A bump row formed of a plurality of bumps 12 corresponding to the electrode pads on the LCD substrate 1 is provided on the film substrate 9. One edge portion of the film substrate 9 located at the opposite portion of the electrode pad 11 is provided so as to extend over the electrode pad 11 longer than the edge portion of the film substrate fixing substrate 7, and the film substrate 9 at this extended portion.
An upper alignment mark is provided, and for example, L which comes to a position facing a pad on the film substrate 9 as a mark.
The bumps 12 are positioned by overlapping the electrode pads 11 on the CD substrate 1. Further, the entire surface of the film substrate 9 is adhered to the film substrate fixing substrate 7 via the felt 10 in a substantially parallel state. In the inspection apparatus configured as described above, when the bumps 12 on the film substrate 9 come into contact with the electrode pads 11 on the LCD substrate 1, the felt 10 is elastically deformed uniformly, so that the LC
This brings about an effect that the bump 12 can be brought into contact with the D substrate 1 with a uniform pressure.

[0026]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a film substrate on which bump contacts corresponding to the electrode pads are arranged, and the bump contacts of the film substrate are evenly arranged on the electrode pads of the liquid crystal display substrate / semiconductor chip. Since the elastic member arranged so as to be in pressure contact is formed into a substantially cylindrical shape, and the cylindrical surface is rolled up by the film substrate, it is an inexpensive professional that can measure a multi-pin, narrow-pitch liquid crystal display substrate. -Get the Buchard. In the probe card using the spring probe as the elastic member, the particles generated from the spring probe are received on the upper surface of the film substrate, so that a high quality measurement can be performed. Is possible.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing contact between a main part of an inspection device according to an embodiment of the present invention and a liquid crystal substrate.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing contact of a main part of an inspection apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention with a liquid crystal substrate.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a fixing substrate of the film substrate shown in FIG.

4 is a perspective view showing a mounting structure of the film substrate shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration of an inspection apparatus that is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing contact between a main part of an inspection apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention and a liquid crystal substrate.

FIG. 7 is a side view of the inspection device shown in FIG.

FIG. 8 is a perspective view showing contact between a main part of an inspection apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention and a liquid crystal substrate.

9 is a side view of the inspection device shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 7 Film substrate fixed substrate 8 Adhesive layer 9 Film substrate 10 Felt material 11 Electrode pad 12 Bump 17 Spring probe

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A liquid crystal inspecting apparatus having a contactor for contacting an electrode pad formed on a liquid crystal display substrate and measuring the electrical characteristics of the liquid crystal display substrate through the contactor, which corresponds to the electrode pad. Flexible film substrate on which the bump contactor is disposed, a cylindrical elastic member whose surface is covered by the film substrate, and the film substrate so that the bump contactor is evenly pressed against the electrode pad. A liquid crystal inspection device comprising a substrate for fixing the liquid crystal. 2. A conductive terminal electrically connected to the contact on the back side of the bump contact, and a spring probe elastically contacting the conductive terminal, and a liquid crystal via the spring probe. The liquid crystal inspection device according to claim 1, wherein the electric characteristics of the display substrate are measured and inspected.