JPS6153632B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a uniform heating device for heating and drying a coated film after applying a resist solution during the general process of photoablation. .

(Conventional technology and problems) The general process of photo printing is, for example, to coat a flat glass plate with a metal film such as chrome, coat it with resist, dry it, and set the original on top. Then, it is exposed to light or electron beams and developed to leave an image of the manuscript on the material.Then, by etching, the upper metal part of the material other than the image is removed and the image is left on a glass plate. It is something. This method is used for fine fabrication, and the present invention relates to a uniform heating device for heating and drying the coated film after applying the resist solution during the above process. In addition to the requirements for the resist itself, this process requires uniformity of the resist film and prevention of foreign matter contamination and adhesion, which affects the steps after exposure or the yield of the product.

The conventional method is to apply a resist onto a material by spin coating, dip coating, roll coating, or the like, and then dry the resist by evaporating the solvent in the resist coating film. The common drying method has been to put the material into a high temperature atmosphere such as an oven or a conveyor furnace. In this method, the surface of the resist is heated first and the solvent evaporates, so the surface dries first and a cured film is formed on the surface that does not allow gas to pass through. However, the inside of the resist or near the surface of the material still contains the solvent of the resist solution. It has a gel-like appearance. Therefore, if this heating drying process is continued, the solvent inside the coated film will gasify due to heat and remain inside, creating bubbles inside and causing waviness on the resist surface, which will affect the flatness of the important surface. In addition, the previously cured surface is broken and the solvent evaporates, creating protruding holes, and the surface flatness is lost. This will impair the pattern accuracy, which is considered important. In this method, flatness is obtained by gradual evaporation, but it takes a long time to dry, increasing the chance that dust and the like in the atmosphere will adhere to the resist surface during that time. In order to improve this point, methods using infrared irradiation and lower heating methods have been used.

In the infrared method, the infrared source is not a plane source, but
Since it is close to a point source, the temperature distribution tends to be uneven, especially when the plane is large, and the temperature rise of each becomes uneven due to the difference in specific heat between the material and the resist, which tends to cause the same problem as above.

In addition, the bottom heating method uses multiple heating plates embedded with heaters, etc., and heats and dries the object while passing it through a conveyor onto the conveyor, but this heating plate is in complete contact with the conveyor. Therefore, heat conduction is poor, resulting in uneven temperature of the object to be heated and a prolonged heating time. Therefore, there are problems such as an increased chance of dust adhesion.

(Object of the Invention) In order to solve the problems of the conventional resist heating drying method described above, the present invention uniformly heats and dries the surface and inside of the resist coating film or the top surface of the material at the same time. The object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for uniformly heating a resist, which prevents the formation of bubbles, undulations, holes, etc. on the surface, and provides excellent photoablation.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The present invention solves the above-mentioned problems, and uses both far-infrared heating and bottom heating methods to heat the resist from above to uniformly increase and distribute the temperature. During heating and drying after resist coating, heaters are arranged to slide on the bottom surface of a heat-resistant conveyor belt on which the object to be heated is placed and conveyed, and infrared rays are radiated downward onto the top of the conveyor belt. The gist is that a heater light source is provided.

(Function) Since the present invention has the above-described structure, the resist coated on the material is first heated at the bottom by the conveyor belt, the solvent is evaporated through the liquid, and drying starts from the bottom and then at the infrared irradiation position. Since the resist is heated from above, the resist is dried uniformly and the surface is flat, and when heated from below, the heater is in sliding contact with the conveyor belt, so the heat conduction efficiency is extremely good.

(Example) The resist uniform heating apparatus of the present invention will be explained by referring to the illustrated example. FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a cross section of the uniform heating device of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is also a partially enlarged view. 1 is a conveyor belt, for example, made of a heat-resistant metal such as stainless steel, or a heat-resistant synthetic resin. In the figure, a resist coating is applied to material 2 such as glass, metal, semiconductor, etc. intermittently from the left end in the previous process. The object 4 to be processed, which has been subjected to the treatment No. 3, is transported. Here, a light source 5 of a (far) infrared heater is arranged from above along the conveyor belt 1, and a heating heater 9 is arranged in sliding contact with the lower side of the conveyor belt 1 which is conveying the object to be processed 4. By doing this, the heat from the heater 9 is in sliding contact with the conveyor belt 1, so the heat conductivity is good, and the heat is transferred from the conveyor belt 1 to the substrate 2 to be processed to form the coating film 3. Warm the bottom. Further, since the infrared heater 5 penetrates and heats the resist coating film from above, it works together with the lower heating heater 9 to realize one heating of the coating film. In addition, 6 is a cover of the infrared heater 5, 7 is a friend wheel, 8 is a drive wheel, 1
0 is the guide wheel.

(Effects) The uniform heating device of the present invention is a device that heats and dries resist after applying it to a material (substrate), and improves the drawbacks of the above-mentioned conventional method. Since the heating heaters are arranged so as to slide, the resist base material is heated from below with good heat conduction efficiency.At the same time, the infrared heaters arranged above the conveyor belt heat the resist from above. Efficient heat conduction from the conveyor belt starts from the bottom of the substrate, and heating and drying begins from the bottom of the resist and hardens, and then evenly heated from above by irradiation from the top of the resist with an infrared heater. Since the drying progresses from the bottom of the resist upwards before the surface of the resist dries and hardens, there is no possibility that air bubbles will form inside the resist after it has been applied, causing undulations on the surface or holes for air bubbles to form. . Therefore, the resist surface is finished flat, and drying is done quickly with good thermal efficiency, so it can be done in a short time.Therefore, there is less chance of dust etc. in the atmosphere getting mixed in or adhering to it, and high pattern accuracy is required. It has now become possible to form excellent resist films suitable for photoablation.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is an explanatory diagram of the uniform heating device of the present invention;
The figure is a partial sectional view. 1...Conveyor belt, 2...Substrate (material) of the object to be processed, 3...Resist coating film, 4...Object to be processed,
5...Infrared heater, 6...Infrared heater cover, 7...Friend wheel, 8...Drive wheel, 9...Heating heater, 10...Guiding wheel.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 During the general process of photoablation, heaters are arranged in sliding contact with the lower surface of a heat-resistant conveyor belt on which the object to be heated is placed and conveyed during heating drying after resist coating, and above the conveyor belt. A uniform heating device characterized by being provided with an infrared heater light source that irradiates downward.