JPH09277571A - Device for manufacturing color filter, manufacture of color filter, and color filter - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a low cost and highly reliable device by designing it so that the amount of a shift between an alignment mark on a substrate and the reference position of an image drawing head is detected by a displacement detecting device and the detected amount of a shift is corrected. SOLUTION: When a substrate 5 is mounted on an XY stage 3, a Z tilt direction is matched by a Z tilt stage so that the face of the substrate 5 stays within the detection range of an alignment detecting optical unit 6. In addition, either or three directions X, Y, θ is detected so that an alignment mark on the substrate 5 meets a reference position with the help of the alignment detecting optical unit 6. Based on the detection results, a shaft in the θdirection is corrected by a θ stage and a shift in the X, Y directions is corrected by the XY stage 3. Further, a clearance between the substrate 5 and an image drawing head 4 and their tilt are sought by an optical unit 7 for Z detection, and an image is drawn using the image drawing head 4 while controlling the Z tilt stage so that the clearance is constant. Thus it is possible to obtain a low cost and highly reliable device for manufacturing a color filter.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a color filter for a color liquid crystal display or the like used in a color television or a personal computer, and an apparatus and method for manufacturing the same, and more particularly to one using an ink jet recording technique.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a method of manufacturing a color filter, there are a dye method, a pigment dispersion method, an electrodeposition method, a printing method and the like. The dyeing method is to form a layer of a water-soluble polymer material, which is a material for dyes, on a glass substrate, form this into a desired pattern by photolithography, and immerse the glass substrate in a dye bath. R the step of obtaining a colored pattern,
A color filter is formed by repeating three times for each of G and B colors. The pigment dispersion method is a method of forming a photosensitive resin layer in which a pigment is dispersed on a glass substrate, and patterning the photosensitive resin layer to obtain a monochrome pattern by repeating the process three times for R, G, and B colors to form a color filter. To form.

The electrodeposition method is a process of forming a transparent electrode pattern on a glass substrate and immersing the glass substrate in an electrodeposition coating solution containing a pigment, a resin, an electrolytic solution and the like to electrodeposit a single color. The color filters are formed by repeating three times for each of the three colors G, B, and firing. The printing method is a method in which printing with a thermosetting resin in which a pigment is dispersed is repeated three times to apply R, G, and B colors separately, and then the resin is thermoset.

Common to these four types of methods is that
It is necessary to repeat the same process three times for coloring the three colors of R, G, and B, and the number of processes is large, so that there are drawbacks such as a decrease in yield and an increase in cost.
Furthermore, the electrodeposition method is difficult to apply to TFTs because the shape of the pattern that can be formed is limited. Further, the printing method has drawbacks such as poor resolution and difficulty in addressing pattern miniaturization.

To overcome these drawbacks, a technique has been proposed in which an ink jet is ejected onto a glass substrate to form a filter pattern (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-75).
205, JP-A-63-235901, JP-A-1-217.
320 etc.).

Here, the technique of ejecting ink jet to form a filter pattern uses a moving stage device, and a highly accurate moving stage is required to form a high-definition color filter. In the conventional moving stage apparatus, high precision processing and assembly are performed for high precision positioning, and the movement amount is measured by an interferometer. Was using.

[0007]

However, conventionally,
In the technology using this inkjet, the function for carrying out production was insufficient. That is, in order to increase the screen size of the liquid crystal display device and to speed up the manufacturing, it is necessary to take a plurality of substrates from one substrate, and it is indispensable to increase the size of the color filter manufacturing substrate and the manufacturing device accordingly. is there. For this reason, the distortion of the glass substrate is increased and the positional accuracy of the manufacturing apparatus is deteriorated, high-precision drawing cannot be performed, and there is a problem in productivity. Further, with the increase in size of the manufacturing apparatus, there is a limitation on the accuracy and the manufacturable length of the hyperplane mirror for measurement, and even if it is manufactured, there are problems such as weight and holding method.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to solve the above problems, to satisfy the characteristics of the conventional method such as resolution, and to make use of the characteristics of the ink jet system, to provide an inexpensive and highly reliable color filter. It is to provide a manufacturing apparatus and method. More specifically, for large substrates,
It is to improve productivity by enabling R, G, and B color patterns to be drawn on a substrate with high accuracy.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and includes at least one drawing head for producing inkjets of three colors of R, G, and B, and a color filter by drawing with the inkjet. When a color filter is formed by scanning a unit (drawing head unit) to which a drawing head is attached or a substrate by using a stage on which a substrate on which a substrate is formed is mounted, a displacement detecting means when the substrate is mounted on the stage It is characterized by having a correction means for detecting the amount of deviation between the alignment mark on the substrate and the reference position of the drawing head, and correcting the detected amount of deviation.

Further, it is characterized in that the deviation amount between the alignment mark on the substrate and the drawing reference position is detected and corrected during the drawing scanning. Further, when writing is performed by combining the drawing scanning operation and the step operation of the nozzle or the substrate stage (movement in the scanning plane in the vertical direction), the alignment mark on the substrate and the drawing head are aligned after the step operation. There is. Further, in the step operation, the pattern shape (for example, the number of pixels) of the color filter formed of the black matrix is read, and the position in the step direction is detected from the pattern shape (the number of pixels). Further, it is characterized in that the deviation amount at the time of drawing scanning is detected in advance from the positions of four or more alignment marks including the vicinity of the four corners of the substrate when the substrate is carried in, and is corrected at the time of scanning drawing.

[0011]

According to the above construction, by using the alignment mark and the color filter pattern for positioning, it is possible to perform highly accurate drawing on a large substrate.
Further, a color filter having uniform characteristics can be formed over the entire substrate.

[0012]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. (Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a surface plate for mounting the apparatus, 2 is a vibration isolation table for supporting the surface plate 1 and isolating external vibration, 3
Is an XY provided on the surface plate 1 for performing a large stroke movement
Stage 4, R, G, B drawing head, 5 substrate for forming color filter, 6 X, Y and θ direction alignment detection optical system of the substrate 5, 7 Z detection optical system, 8 drawing An optical system for detecting the landing position of ink ejected from the head 4,
Reference numeral 9 is a head position adjusting unit for the θ rotation of the drawing head 4, 10 is a laser for length measurement, 11 is a super-flat mirror for length measurement, and 12 is an optical system for pixel detection. FIG. 2 is a detailed view of the XY stage 3, 13 is a Z-tilt stage, and 14
Is a θ stage, and 15 and 16 are driving elements such as a piezo element for driving them.

In the above structure, when the color filter is manufactured, the substrate 5 is mounted on the XY stage (θ, Z-tilt stages 13, 14) 3 (step S51) as shown in FIG. The Z-tilt stage 13 adjusts the Z-tilt direction so that it falls within the detection range (depth of focus) of the alignment detection optical system 6 (step S52). After that, the alignment detection system 6
The shift amounts in the X, Y, and θ3 directions are detected so that the alignment mark on the substrate 5 is at the reference position. Here, the alignment detection optical system 6 reads the alignment mark with a sensor such as a CCD and analyzes the image information obtained there by an image processing unit to calculate the amount of deviation. This detection may be performed by using a plurality of detection systems 6 for a plurality of marks, or may be performed by moving the XY stage 3 in a single detection system for a plurality of detection marks. Based on this detection result, the θ component deviation is corrected by the θ stage 14, and the X direction deviation is X
Correction is performed by aligning the X position of the Y stage 3.
Further, the deviation in the Y direction (print scanning direction) is caused by the XY stage 3.
The Y position adjustment or the ejection timing from the drawing head 4 is controlled (step S54).
Furthermore, when the ink ejection direction of the head or the posture of the head is inclined, as shown in FIG. 4, when the gap between the substrate 5 and the drawing head 4 changes, the landing position changes. Therefore, the Z detection optical system 7 obtains the gap and the inclination therebetween, and the drawing head 4 draws while controlling the Z-tilt stage 13 so that the gap becomes constant (step S56). Depending on accuracy, these gaps and inclinations may be measured when the substrate 5 is mounted, corrected by the Z-tilt stage 13, and fixed during drawing. The laser 10 and the hyperplane mirror 11 constitute a laser interferometer length measurement system, and measure the substrate position in the scanning direction (Y direction) at the time of drawing scanning.

Here, as for the ink landing position of the drawing head 4, when the drawing head is attached to the apparatus, the XY stage 3 is ejected by ejecting ink jet to detect the landing position optical system 8.
The deviation amount is detected with respect to the reference of, and is adjusted by the head position adjusting unit 9.

The drawing head 4 is often shorter than the necessary drawing width of the substrate 5. In that case, a step operation (movement in the scanning plane in the scanning vertical direction) is performed in which the drawing head 4 and the substrate 5 are relatively moved in the scanning plane (XY plane) in the vertical direction (X direction) in the scanning direction (Y direction). It is handled by doing. After this step operation, it is desirable to perform alignment with the reference position using an alignment mark. An example of the alignment mark arrangement at this time is shown in FIG. 21 (21a, 21b, 21c) are alignment marks, and a plurality of them are arranged on the substrate 5. The alignment marks 21 are arranged in the vicinity of both end portions of the substrate in the scan vertical direction, and the distance between them is the pair (21) arranged in the span L1 of the alignment detection optical system 6.
a and 21a, 21b and 21b, 21c and 21c) are arranged with a span L2 equal to or slightly shorter than the head drawable length. As a result, after the step operation, the alignment can be performed again and the drawing scanning operation can be started.

Here, it is desirable that the alignment detecting optical system 6 be installed on the substrate loading side of the head. Further, the detection and adjustment of the ink landing position of the drawing head is adjusted by another adjusting device or the like and mounted on this device, so that the configuration of the head position adjusting unit 9 can be simplified.

According to the present embodiment, the substrate alignment is carried out at the time of carrying in the substrate and after the step operation, which makes it possible to perform highly accurate drawing on a large-sized substrate.
A color filter having uniform characteristics can be formed over the entire substrate.

(Embodiment 2) FIG. 6 shows an example of a pattern structure of a color filter. Using this pattern, the step movement amount (X direction movement amount) is measured using the pixel detection optical system 12. The pixel detection optical system 12 reads image information when a step operation is performed by a sensor such as a CCD and analyzes the image information by an image processing unit. FIG. 7 shows A- of FIG.
An example of the waveform read by the pixel detection optical system 12 is shown along the line (X direction) on the color filter indicated by A ′. In this way, the difference in image signal level between the color filter portion and the black matrix portion can be detected. Positioning is performed by the step movement amount calculated based on the image signal obtained by the image processing unit.

After the step operation, it is desirable to make a correction using the alignment mark 21 (FIG. 5) shown in the first embodiment. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the arrangement of the pixel detection optical system 12. The pixel detection optical system 12 is preferably installed on the opposite side of the alignment detection optical system 6 with respect to the drawing head 4.

In this embodiment, the movement amount is detected using the dedicated pixel detecting optical system 12, but the alignment detecting optical system 6 and the landing position detecting optical system 8 may be used. Further, in this embodiment, a CCD is used for pixel detection.
Although a pixel sensor such as the above is used, by incorporating a mirror on the stage surface under the substrate or by making it a mirror surface, light such as a laser is applied to the substrate and the reflected light is detected by a light intensity detector, and its intensity distribution Thus, the amount of movement may be detected by detecting the number of crossed black matrices.

According to the present embodiment, the position detection in the vertical direction (X direction) within the scanning plane with respect to the drawing scanning direction (Y direction) is performed on the basis of the black matrix pattern, whereby X
It is possible to eliminate the directional movement hyperplane mirror for length measurement, reduce the weight of the movable portion, and improve the positioning accuracy and movement speed.

(Embodiment 3) Still another embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 9 is a schematic view of a substrate for explaining this embodiment. The alignment mark 21 is formed on the substrate 4
One is placed near each corner. When loading the board,
The alignment detection optical system 6 uses the four alignment marks 21 to align the substrate 5 with the reference position. The displacement amount of each alignment mark 21 after the completion of the reference position alignment of the substrate 5 is stored, and the displacement amount is corrected by the XY stage 3 and the θ stage 14 or the head position adjustment unit 9 during the drawing scanning.

In some cases, after the substrate is loaded, only the displacement amount of the substrate 5 is detected and the substrate 5 is not aligned with the reference position, and the substrate stages 3 and 14 are moved during the drawing scanning.
It is also possible to deal with this by performing position correction using the head position adjustment unit 9 or. In this embodiment, the alignment marks are arranged at the four corners of the substrate, but as shown in FIG. 5 of the second embodiment, the alignment marks may be arranged at each step position, and detailed position correction detection may be performed at each step. .

According to the present embodiment, it is possible to simplify or omit the substrate alignment at the time of loading the substrate without impairing the positioning accuracy, and it is possible to improve the throughput.

[0025]

As described above, according to the structure and method of the present invention, by performing substrate alignment, it is possible to perform highly accurate drawing on a large substrate, and a color filter having uniform characteristics over the entire substrate. Can be formed. Further, by detecting the position in the vertical direction with respect to the drawing scanning direction on the basis of the black matrix pattern, it is possible to reduce the weight of the movable part by eliminating the hyperplane mirror for measuring the length in the vertical direction, and to improve the positioning accuracy and the moving speed. Can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a main part of a color filter manufacturing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view of a main part of the XY stage in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing substrate processing in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an image diagram of ink ejection according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an alignment mark layout diagram of a substrate used in the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an enlarged view of a color filter according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a detection signal waveform of a color filter pattern in the second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a layout diagram of a head and an optical system applied to a second embodiment.

FIG. 9 is an alignment mark arrangement diagram used for description of a third embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: surface plate, 2: vibration isolation table, 3: XY stage, 4: drawing head, 5: substrate, 6: alignment optical system, 7: Z detection optical system, 8: landing position detection optical system, 9: Head position adjustment unit, 10: laser for length measurement, 11: hyperplane mirror, 12: optical system for pixel detection, 13: Z-tilt stage, 14: θ stage, 21 (21a, 21b, 21)
c): Alignment mark.

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. A drawing head comprising: at least one set of drawing heads that respectively generate R, G, and B color ink jets; and a stage on which a substrate on which a color filter is formed by drawing by the ink jets is mounted. A manufacturing apparatus for forming a color filter by performing relative scanning between an attached drawing head unit and the substrate to perform drawing, when mounting the substrate on the stage, an alignment mark on the substrate and the drawing by a displacement detection unit. 2. A color filter manufacturing apparatus, comprising: a detection unit that detects the amount of deviation from the reference position, and a correction unit that corrects the detected amount of deviation. 2. The detecting means again detects the remaining deviation amount after the correcting means performs the correcting operation, and the correcting means corrects the remaining deviation amount during the drawing scanning. Item 1. The color filter manufacturing apparatus according to Item 1. 3. When performing a drawing by combining the drawing scanning operation and a step operation of the drawing head unit and the stage in the drawing scanning in-plane scanning vertical direction, after the step operation, an alignment mark on the substrate is formed. 3. The color filter manufacturing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the alignment between the drawing reference position and the drawing reference position is performed. 4. The color filter according to claim 1, wherein in the step operation, a pattern shape of a color filter formed of a black matrix is read and a position in a step direction is detected from the pattern shape. Manufacturing equipment. 5. The deviation amount during the drawing scanning is detected in advance from the positions of the four or more alignment marks including the four corners of the substrate when the substrate is carried in, and is corrected during the scanning drawing. The color filter manufacturing apparatus according to claim 1. 6. An R, G, B at least one set of drawing heads that respectively generate inkjets, and a substrate on which a color filter is formed by drawing by the inkjets are relatively scanned, and R, G,
In a manufacturing method for forming a color filter by drawing a large number of pixels of B3 colors, when a substrate is mounted on the stage, a displacement detection unit detects a deviation amount between an alignment mark on the substrate and a reference position for drawing. A method for manufacturing a color filter, which comprises detecting and correcting the detected deviation amount. 7. The method of manufacturing a color filter according to claim 1, wherein the deviation residual amount after the deviation amount correction is corrected during drawing scanning. 8. The drawing scanning operation is combined with a step operation of the drawing head unit and the stage in the drawing scanning in-plane scanning vertical direction and drawing is performed, and after the step operation, an alignment mark on the substrate is further formed. 8. The method of manufacturing a color filter according to claim 6, wherein the alignment between the drawing reference position and the drawing reference position is performed. 9. The step operation, wherein the pattern shape of a color filter formed of a black matrix on the substrate is read, and the substrate position in the step operation direction is detected from the pattern shape.
The method for manufacturing a color filter according to any one of 1. 10. The deviation amount during the drawing scanning is detected in advance from the positions of the four or more alignment marks including the vicinity of the four corners of the substrate when the substrate is loaded, and is corrected during the scanning drawing. The method for manufacturing a color filter according to claim 6. 11. A color filter manufactured by the apparatus or method according to claim 1.