KR100254947B1 - Manufacturing method of spacer for fed panel and spacer using its method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method of making spacer is provided to be capable of forming a plurality of spacers at once by anisotropy-etching a silicon substrate so as to fabricate the spacer. CONSTITUTION: A photoresist pattern(2) is formed on upper and lower surfaces of a silicon wafer and the upper surface of the silicon wafer is patterned by use of the photoresist pattern as a mask. The thickness of the photoresist on the lower surface is thicker than that on the upper surface. A concave groove(11) is formed by etching the pattern of the upper surface by an anisotropic wet etch process. After removing the photoresist pattern on the upper surface, the second photoresist pattern is formed on the photoresist-removed area. An etch process is performed by an anisotropic wet etch process and the photoresist on the lower surface is removed.

Description

Spacer manufacturing method of FED panel and spacer

1 to 4 show a spacer manufacturing process according to the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

1 silicon wafer 2 photoresist

3: lower photoresist 5: secondary photoresist

11: home

The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a spacer for a field emission device (FED) and to a structure of the spacer.

The basic structure of the FED includes an emitter for emitting electrons, a phosphor on the anode side for emitting electrons, a driving circuit portion, and a packing structure for vacuum inside.

Since the package process is a process of making a high vacuum after sealing, a spacer for maintaining and maintaining a constant gap is formed between the upper and lower plates of the field emission display device in order to prevent bending of the upper and lower plates during the vacuum operation. Four conventional methods for forming the spacer are known. First, a spacer material having a desired thickness 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 upper portion of the filler material and partially etching the spacer material using a mask.

Another method is to manufacture a spacer using a screen printing method, in which a material such as frit glass is formed at a portion where a spacer of a lower substrate on which a field emitter is formed or an upper substrate on which a phosphor is formed is to be formed. It is a method of forming a spacer of a desired shape by repeatedly printing repeatedly and heat-treating at a suitable temperature.

Another method is to form a spacer only in a portion required by physical vapor deposition.Also, a mask having holes formed on top of a lower substrate on which a field emitter is formed is deposited, and a material for spacers is deposited by physical vapor deposition. It is a method of forming by removing.

Another method is to use a spacer manufactured separately, and then to produce a spacer having a desired shape and size separately, and then to the lower substrate on which the field emitter is formed or the upper substrate on which the phosphor and the anode are formed. It is a method of fixing said separately produced spacer to a part.

However, the above manufacturing methods each have the following problems.

First, the spacer material is applied to the upper part of the lower substrate as a whole, and then etching is performed except for the portion where the spacer is to be formed. The emitter, the gate electrode, and the like may be damaged, and the spacer material in the angular portions such as the corner portion of the field emitter may not be completely removed, and thus the performance of the field emission display device may be degraded.

On the other hand, the method of manufacturing the spacer by the screen printing method cannot apply the spacer of the desired thickness precisely at one time and must perform the repetitive process several times, so that the position of the applied material may be slightly different and the working efficiency is increased during mass production. There is a problem of falling, and there is a high possibility that the upper or lower plate on which the emitter or phosphor is formed is damaged during screen printing.

Next, a method of forming a spacer by a photolithography method using a photoresist should be exposed after coating the thickness of the photoresist mask to a thickness of tens or hundreds of microns, which is difficult to secure a suitable light source.

Finally, the method of forming a spacer by separately manufacturing the spacer and then fixing it to the upper substrate or the lower substrate is problematic in the manufacture of the spacer because the size of the separately manufactured spacer is only tens to hundreds of microns. There is a problem in that it is difficult to fix the spacer already manufactured at the position.

Among the methods proposed so far, the best method for minimizing the damage to the panel during process simplicity or process is to place the spacers prepared in advance at the desired position after the upper and lower panels are finished. There is a problem in that it is fixed to and to make a fine spacer of 100-200μm size.

The present invention solves the problems of the conventional methods described above, and is convenient for process and mass production, and also allows the strength of the spacer to be sufficiently positioned without affecting the upper and lower substrates and various elements formed thereon. It aims to do it.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method for fabricating a micro-sized spacer using a simple photolithography and anisotropic etching process of a silicon substrate, the main feature of the present invention is the silicon wafer (1) up and down After applying the photoresist 2, 3, patterning the upper photoresist 2, etching the upper silicon wafer 1 portion, removing the upper photoresist 2, and then And a step of forming a photoresist 5 pattern, a step of etching secondly, and a step of removing the lower photoresist 3.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail based on the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the patterning of the photoresist (PR) 2 on a silicon wafer 1 substrate grown to produce a spacer according to the present invention. This reference numeral 3 is a lower photoresist.

In the spacer manufacturing method according to the present invention, first, the photoresist 2 is applied to the lower surface on the silicon wafer 1 in a constant shape. The upper surface is patterned using a lithography process. At this time, the lower photoresist 3 on the lower surface is applied much thicker than the photoresist 2 on the upper surface.

Then, as shown in FIG. 2, the silicon wafer 1 portion is first etched using an anisotropic wet etching process to etch the pattern portion of the upper surface so that the concave groove 11 is formed.

Then, the photoresist 2 on the upper surface of FIG. 2 is removed and a secondary photoresist 5 pattern is formed thereon, as shown in FIG. 3, and as shown in some embodiments of FIG. 4, to a predetermined depth. Etch using deeply anisotropic wet etching process. Finally, when the lower photoresist 3 on the lower surface is removed, a spacer of type “T” is formed on the upper surface as illustrated by “A” in FIG. 4.

Production of the spacer by such a process is possible to manufacture a large amount, and the spacer can be produced in any shape in the pattern to be applied to the photoresist.

For example, it can be formed in any shape such as “c”, “T”, “+” and “I” on the top surface.

The shape of the spacer manufactured as described above is mounted between the pixels (pixels) by enodic bonding between the pixels, that is, on a lattice line. Then it serves as a more robust spacer than the columnar spacer as in the prior art, and its mounting is also easy and robust advantages.

According to the present invention as described above, by fabricating the silicon substrate as a spacer of the FED panel using anisotropic etching, it is possible to mass production in one time, the spacer which remained the biggest problem during vacuum packaging of the FED panel There is an effect that can completely solve the structure, formation, and manufacturing problems of the.

It is also possible to produce spacers of tens to hundreds of microns in size which are difficult to make by mechanical machining.

In addition, there is an advantage that a spacer of various desired shapes can be manufactured by only changing the pattern of the photoresist.

Claims (5)

In the method of manufacturing the spacer of an FED panel, the process of apply | coating photoresist (2, 3) above and below the silicon wafer (1), the process of patterning the upper photoresist (2), and the upper silicon wafer (1) Etching the site, removing the upper photoresist 2, forming a secondary photoresist 5 pattern, etching secondly, and removing the lower photoresist 3. Spacer manufacturing method of the FED panel. The method of manufacturing a spacer of an FED panel according to claim 1, wherein the lower photoresist (3) coating layer is formed thicker than the upper photoresist (2) coating layer. The method of manufacturing a spacer of an FED panel according to claim 1, wherein the etching of the silicon wafer (1) is an anisotropic wet etching process. The method of manufacturing a spacer of an FED panel according to claim 1, wherein the patterning of the photoresist (2) is patterned by a lithography process. Shape of the spacer is manufactured is a spacer, characterized in that any one of "c", "T", "+", "I".