KR100230067B1 - Manufacturing method of spacer for field emission display device - Google Patents

Abstract

According to the present invention, a photoresist is coated on a substrate to manufacture a spacer for a field emission display device (FED), and then a desired portion is etched and a hard mask is aligned on the photoresist material, thereby molding, dipping, or spraying holes. The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a spacer for a field emission display device that forms a spacer by the method, and the spacer can be manufactured at low cost without contamination of the device.

Description

Method of manufacturing spacer for field emission display device

1 is a cross-sectional view of a field emission display device having a general tip type emitter.

2 (a) to 2 (e) are cross-sectional views sequentially showing the manufacturing process of the spacer according to the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

10: field emission display device 11: lower substrate

12 tip type emitter 13 cathode electrode

14 insulator 15 gate electrode

16: upper substrate 17: anode electrode

18: phosphor 19: spacer

20: sealing material 21: exhaust port

22: Customs for exhaust 100: Upper substrate

110: phosphor in pixel unit 120: photoresist

130: hard mask 140: spacer

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a spacer for a field emission display device (FED), in particular, after coating a photoresist on a substrate, etching a desired portion, and arranging a hard mask on the photoresist to form holes in The manufacturing method of the spacer for field emission display elements which forms a spacer by the dipping method and the spray method.

In general, the field emission display device has a field emitter formed of a cathode electrode 13, a gate electrode 15, a tip type emitter 12, an insulator 14, and the like, as shown in FIG. A lower substrate 11, an upper electrode 16 coated with the anode electrode 17 and the phosphor 18, a spacer 9 for maintaining a constant distance between the upper and lower substrates 11 and 16, and It consists of the sealing material 20 which seals the space between two board | substrates joined by the spacer 9. As shown in FIG. At this time, in order to make the space between the two substrates 11 and 16 into a vacuum state, an exhaust port 21 is formed on the lower substrate 11 and the glass tubule 22 is inserted to discharge air and then sealed.

The spacer 19 maintains the space between the upper substrate 16 and the lower substrate 11 at regular intervals so that the spacer 19 can function as a device.

Four conventional methods for manufacturing the spacer are used. First, a spacer material having a desired thickness as a whole is applied to a lower substrate on which a field emitter of a field emission display device is formed, and then the coated spacer is applied. There is a method of manufacturing a spacer by coating a resist material, such as a photoresist, on the material and partially etching the spacer material using a mask.

Another method is to produce a spacer using a screen printing method, in which only a portion where a spacer on a lower substrate on which a field emitter is formed is to be formed is formed by a screen printer method to form a spacer having a desired shape.

In another method, a spacer is formed only on a predetermined portion by physical vapor deposition. A mask is aligned on a lower substrate on which a field emitter is formed to physically deposit a spacer material on the lower substrate exposed by a mask hole. There is a method of removing the mask after forming a spacer using the same.

Another method is to use a spacer manufactured separately, and to produce a spacer shape having a desired size separately, and then to a predetermined portion of a lower substrate on which a field emitter is formed, or an upper substrate on which phosphor and anode electrodes are formed. There was a method for fixing the separately prepared spacer to the function of the spacer.

However, the above spacer manufacturing methods have respective problems.

First, the spacer material is applied to the entire area of the lower substrate, and then etching is performed except for the portion where the spacer is to be formed. The emitter of the field emitter formed on the lower substrate is removed while removing the spacer material of the portion where the spacer is to be formed. The gate and the electrode may be damaged, and there is a problem in that the performance of the field emission display device is degraded since the spacer material at the angular portions such as the edge of the field emitter is not completely removed.

In addition, the manufacturing method of the spacer by the screen printing method has a problem in adjusting the position because it is not possible to precisely apply the spacer of the desired thickness at a time because several screen prints must be repeatedly performed at the same position.

Next, a method of forming a spacer by a photolithography method using a photoresist has to be exposed after coating the thickness of the photoresist mask to a thickness of several tens to hundreds of microns, which makes it difficult to secure a light source for the exposure.

Finally, the spacer is manufactured separately and then fixed to the upper substrate or the lower substrate to be used as a spacer. Since the size of the spacer to be manufactured is only tens to hundreds of microns, the spacer is already manufactured at the desired position of the upper substrate or the lower substrate. There is a problem that it is difficult to fix the.

Therefore, in order to solve the above problems, the present invention is to coat the protective layer with a photoresist, leaving only a portion of the upper substrate or the lower substrate to be manufactured by the field emission display device to be produced by the photolithography method, the photoresist, and on top of the photoresist After aligning the hard mask, the spacer material is molded into a mast hole to form a spacer, thereby easily and inexpensively manufacturing the spacer while reducing damage to the field emission display device.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention selects a substrate on which a spacer is to be formed and coats a photoresist material for protecting the device, and removes only a portion of the photoresist material coated on the device by photolithography. Aligning a hardmask on top of the photoresist material from which the spacers are to be removed, molding a spacer material into the hardmask hole where the spacers are to be formed, and moisture in the molded spacer material. Removing the hard mask material and the photoresist sequentially, and firing at a temperature of 300 ° C. or higher to improve the outgassing and mechanical properties of the spacer material. It is characterized by producing a spacer.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The spacer according to the present invention may be manufactured on either the upper substrate or the lower substrate. However, when the emitter of the field emission display device is a thin film type, the lower substrate on which the cathode electrode is formed or the upper substrate on which the phosphor and the anode electrode are formed. In the case where the emitter is a tip type emitter, the spacer may be formed on the upper substrate to which the phosphor is applied, rather than the lower substrate.

2 (a) to 2 (e) show the manufacturing process of the spacer according to the present invention in sequence, the method is the upper substrate 100 in which the phosphor 110 is formed by the anode electrode and pixel unit Is a method of manufacturing a spacer.

First, FIG. 2 (a) shows that the phosphor 110 is formed in pixel units on the upper substrate 100 on which the transparent electrode (not shown) is formed. FIG. In order to protect the phosphor 110, the photoresist 120 is coated with a protective layer by a spin coating method, and then the photoresist is removed by using a photolithography method. The thickness of the photoresist material to be coated is then within 50 microns.

Next, FIG. 2 (c) shows that the hard mask 130 is formed by contacting the partially etched photoresist by the thickness of the spacer to be manufactured on the photoresist 120 of FIG. In this case, the most important thing is that the holes of the hard mask 130 and the portions etched by the photolithography method of the photoresist 120 should be aligned.

Next, FIG. 2 (d) shows the molding of the spacer 140 material in the portion where the hard mask 130 hole and the photoresist 12 are etched in FIG. 2 (c). As shown in FIG. The screen printing method, the dipping method, the vapor deposition method, or the spray method can be used. In this case, as the material of the spacer 140, a paste containing a dielectric powder or a glass powder, a polymer, or frit glass is used.

Next, FIG. 2 (e) shows that the spacers 140 are formed by sequentially removing the hard mask 130 and the photoresist 120 of FIG. 2 (d), and the hard mask 130 is removed. The moisture of the spacer material should be removed before or after removal.

Next, the spacer 140 is formed by baking the upper substrate 100 on which the spacer 140 from which the moisture is removed is formed at a temperature of 300 ° C. or higher in a vacuum or air, thereby improving the outgassing and mechanical properties of the spacer 140 material. ) Can be prepared.

As described above, the spacer manufacturing method according to the present invention can easily adjust the height of the spacer by adjusting the thickness of the hard mask, when molding by screen printing method can produce a long spacer of 100 microns or more at a time, Aligning the mask with the substrate is easy and damage to the device can be reduced by using a photoresist material as the protective layer.

In addition, by using a hard mask, fine mask holes can be precisely manufactured, so that spacers can be precisely manufactured.

In addition, by using the hard mask to mold the spacer material using the screen printing method, the dipping method or the spray method only in the holes, the spacer can be manufactured at low cost without contamination of the device.

Claims (8)

Selecting a substrate on which the spacers are to be formed and coating a device protection photoresist material, removing only the portion where the spacers are to be manufactured by photolithography from the photoresist material coated on the device, and forming the spacers Aligning the hard mask over the portion of the photoresist material from which the portion has been removed, molding a spacer material into the mask hole where the spacer is to be formed, removing moisture from the molded spacer material, and And sequentially removing the photoresist, and firing to improve the outgassing and mechanical properties of the spacer material. The method of claim 1, wherein the height of the spacer is adjustable by adjusting a thickness of a hard mask. The method of manufacturing a spacer for a field emission display device according to claim 1, wherein a metal is used as a material of the hard mask. The method of claim 1, wherein the protective layer has a thickness of 50 microns or less. The method of manufacturing a spacer for a field emission display device according to claim 1, wherein a paste containing a dielectric powder or a glass powder is used as the spacer material. The method of manufacturing a spacer for a field emission display device according to claim 1, wherein a polymer is used as the spacer material. The method of claim 1, wherein a screen printer method, a spray method, a vapor deposition method, or a dipping method is used as a method of molding a spacer material into the hole of the hard mask. The method of claim 1, wherein the temperature at which the spacers are fired is 300 ° C. or higher.