KR101170596B1 - Gas injection apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention includes a plate including a bottom surface having at least one first injection port for injecting a process gas into the reaction space, and a top surface in which the process gas is introduced from the outside and disposed opposite to the bottom surface; And at least one nozzle module having a second injection port and coupled to the plate to correspond to the at least one first injection port.

Description

Gas injection apparatus

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a gas ejection apparatus of a liquid crystal display manufacturing apparatus, and more particularly, to a gas ejection apparatus in which a nozzle unit is separated.

In general, a liquid crystal display device includes a thin film transistor substrate having a thin film transistor and a pixel electrode in a pixel region defined by a gate wiring and a data wiring, a color filter substrate having a color filter layer and a common electrode, and interposed between two substrates. It consists of a liquid crystal layer.

In order to manufacture such a substrate, a thin film deposition process for depositing a raw material on a glass substrate, a photolithography process for exposing or concealing a selected region of the thin films using a photosensitive material, and removing the thin film of the selected region and patterning as desired Etching process, cleaning process to remove residues, etc. must be repeated several to several tens of times, each of these processes is carried out in the chamber that has the optimum environment for the process.

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a general configuration of a PECVD apparatus, which is a representative liquid crystal display device manufacturing apparatus, and includes a chamber 10 defining a constant reaction space, and a substrate 30 disposed on an upper surface of the chamber 10. In the susceptor 20, a plurality of injection holes 42 and a gas injection device 40 for injecting a process gas from the top of the susceptor 20, and an external gas storage unit (not shown) Is connected to include a gas inlet pipe 80 for introducing a process gas to the gas injection device (40).

The upper plate 50 of the gas injection device 40 is generally used as a plasma electrode for applying RF power to the process gas, the upper plate 50 is connected to the RF power supply 60 for supplying RF power, the upper plate Between the 50 and the RF power supply 60, an impedance matching box 70 for matching impedance so that maximum power can be applied is located.

The electrode corresponding to the plasma electrode is a grounded susceptor 20, and RF power may be applied to the susceptor 20.

The process gas introduced from the gas supply pipe 80 is first uniformly diffused in the buffer space 52 between the lower plate having the injection hole 42 and the upper plate 50, and then uniformly injected into the chamber.

Conventional gas injection device 40 has a lower plate having a plurality of injection holes 42, as shown in Figure 2, the lower plate is also referred to as a shower head, a square plate made of aluminum material larger than the substrate Have

Since the shower head is fixed only to the periphery of the chamber or the upper plate 50, the central part without a separate supporting means always sags below the periphery, which causes a problem in that the process gas distribution of the substrate periphery and the central part is uneven.

This phenomenon is aggravated as the size of the showerhead increases, so in order to prevent this, a larger thickness t is produced. For example, in the equipment processing 1500mm * 1850mm 6th generation substrate, the showerhead is made of a thickness of 30mm to 35mm, the equipment for 7th generation substrates of 1950mm * 2250mm is about 50mm thick.

In addition, since the nozzle 42 of the shower head is processed at a density of about 11,000 per unit area (m2), about 35,000 nozzles for the 6th generation showerhead and about 50,000 nozzles for the 7th generation substrate are used. For 8th generation boards expected to be 2200mm * 2550mm, more than 60,000 jets should be processed.

However, the injection hole 42 is not processed into a simple straight through hole, but as illustrated in FIG. 3A, the gas inlet 42a, the nozzle 42b, the primary diffuser 42c, and the secondary diffuser ( 42d) and the like are processed by forming holes having different diameters and shapes several times.

In some cases, as shown in FIG. 3B, the gas inlet part is omitted, and the gas inlet part may be manufactured in the order of the nozzle part 42b, the primary diffusion part 42c, and the secondary diffusion part 42d from the top surface.

The nozzle portion 42b usually has a diameter of 0.4 to 0.8 mm, and the gas inflow portion 42a or the primary diffusion portion 42c has a diameter of 3 mm or more.

The reason why the injection hole 42 includes the nozzle 42b of the micro diameter in this way is to increase the pressure in the upper part of the injection hole 42 so that the process gas can be diffused more uniformly in the buffer space 52 and furthermore, It is because it can spray uniformly. For this reason, the smaller the diameter of the nozzle portion 42b is, the more advantageous it is to spray the process gas uniformly.

However, in order to process the nozzle 42 of the conventional type, first, the nozzle 42b having a small diameter is processed, and then the gas inlet 42a and the primary diffuser 42c are disposed at both ends of the nozzle 42b. It must be processed in turn.

A very precise technique is required to process 50,000 or more nozzle portions 42b with a diameter of 0.4 mm on an aluminum plate having a thickness of about 50 mm. In addition, even if one of the injection holes 42 during the manufacturing process can not be used in the liquid crystal display device manufacturing apparatus that requires a high degree of accuracy, there is a problem that the shower head must be discarded and manufactured again from the beginning.

Therefore, the production cost of the shower head is very high, it takes a few months to produce a single shower head, so there is a great difficulty in meeting the delivery date.

The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a gas spraying device for a large-area substrate which can significantly reduce a defect rate while reducing manufacturing time.

The present invention, in order to achieve the above object, includes a lower surface having at least one first injection port for injecting the process gas into the reaction space, and the upper surface is disposed opposite to the lower surface and the process gas is introduced from the outside A plate; And at least one nozzle module having a second injection port and coupled to the plate to correspond to the at least one first injection port.

Here, an opening communicating with the at least one first injection port is formed on the upper surface of the plate, and the at least one nozzle module may be inserted into and coupled to the opening.

In addition, the at least one nozzle module may be detachable from the opening, and the opening and the at least one nozzle module may be screwed together.

A locking step may be formed on an inner circumferential surface of the opening, and the at least one nozzle module may be mounted on the locking step so as to be spaced apart from the bottom of the opening.

In addition, the opening may be formed in a concave portion shape on the upper surface of the plate so as to correspond to the first injection port, and the nozzle module may be inserted into and coupled to the opening.

Alternatively, the opening may be formed in the form of a concave portion on the upper surface of the plate so as to correspond to the two or more first injection ports, and the opening may include two or more nozzle modules inserted therein.

The diameter of the opening may be larger than the diameter of the at least one first injection port, and the at least one nozzle module may be a cylinder or a square cylinder.

In addition, the at least one nozzle module may be directly inserted into and coupled to the first injection port.

Here, the first injection port and the at least one nozzle module may be screwed.

The plate and the at least one nozzle module may have the same height.

In addition, the second injection port may have a smaller diameter than the at least one first injection port, the second injection port may be composed of a gas inlet, a nozzle and a diffusion.

The at least one nozzle module may be a plurality of nozzle modules, and the second injection holes of the plurality of nozzle modules may have different hole diameters and injection angles.

According to the present invention, since the nozzle part having a high process difficulty is manufactured separately during the manufacture of the gas injection device, the defect rate is lowered and the manufacturing period is greatly shortened. Therefore, the processing cost can be reduced and the production cost can be greatly reduced.

In addition, when the nozzle unit is manufactured in the form of a nozzle module, it is also possible to locally control the density of the process gas by changing the hole diameter or the spray angle of the nozzle module.

1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a general liquid crystal display device manufacturing apparatus
2 is a perspective view of a general gas injection device
Figures 3a and 3b is a cross-sectional configuration of several types of nozzle
4 is a cross-sectional view of a gas injection device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a perspective view of a gas injection device according to a first embodiment of the present invention;
6 is a cross-sectional view of a gas injection device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.
7 is a perspective view of a gas injection device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.
8 is a perspective view of a gas injection device according to a third embodiment of the present invention;
9 is a cross-sectional view of a gas injection device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.
10 is a perspective view of a gas injection device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings, and it is apparent that the drawings of the present specification have been shown to be somewhat exaggerated, ignoring the scale for convenience of description.

First Embodiment

4 and 5 are a cross-sectional view and a perspective view of the gas injection device 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention, by forming a plurality of concave openings 116 on the upper surface of the lower plate 110, the plurality of openings 116 is characterized in that it can be attached and detached a plurality of nozzle modules 160.

The first lower plate 110 has a plurality of first injection holes 112 of a relatively large diameter corresponding to the conventional diffusion, so that one opening 116 corresponds to one first injection hole 112. Multiple openings 116 are formed.

In addition, the plurality of nozzle modules 160 includes a plurality of second injection holes 162 having a relatively small diameter corresponding to the conventional nozzle unit, in which one second injection hole 162 is provided in one nozzle module 160. Is formed.

Here, an opening 116 having a diameter larger than that of the first injection hole 112 is formed at the inlet of each of the plurality of first injection holes 112.

The plurality of first injection spheres 112 and the plurality of second injection spheres 162 correspond to each other one-to-one, and the first injection sphere 112 serves to diffuse the high-pressure gas passing through the second injection hole 162, 2mm to 10mm It may be processed to a diameter of, and may be manufactured to be straight, as shown in the tapered only the lower end, or may be processed to increase in diameter toward the bottom as shown in FIG.

A plurality of nozzle modules 160 are inserted into the plurality of openings 116, respectively, and the nozzle module 160 has a flat cylindrical shape, and a second injection hole 162 is formed in the center to serve as a nozzle.

The second injection port 162 may be processed to a single diameter as shown, and may be processed to have a gas inlet 162a, a nozzle 162b, and a diffusion 162c as shown in FIG. have.

Regardless of what shape is processed, since the second injection port 162 plays the same role as the conventional nozzle unit, the minimum diameter is preferably 0.1 mm or more and 1 mm or less.

In addition, the smaller the diameter of the second injection port 162 is advantageous to uniformly inject the process gas, but considering the difficulty of the processing technology and the process gas, it is preferable that the diameter is 0.1 mm or more.

Since the first injection hole 112 having a larger diameter than the second injection hole 162 does not have high processing precision, even if the lower plate 110 is made thick, the processing time is much shorter than that of the conventional injection nozzle including the nozzle part. Not only the defect rate is significantly reduced.

The thickness of the lower plate 110 is increased in proportion to the size of the gas injection device, but preferably manufactured in the range of about 10 mm to about 100 mm.

The nozzle module 160 is most preferably in a cylindrical shape, but may vary in shape depending on the shape of the opening 116 to be inserted. That is, when the opening 116 has a polygonal cross-sectional shape, it is produced as a polygonal column.

The two are preferably in close contact with each other so that the process gas does not leak between the nozzle module 160 and the opening 116. You may.

In addition, a locking step may be formed on the inner circumferential surface of the opening 116 to mount the nozzle module 160.

As the nozzle module 160 is detachably manufactured as described above, the lower plate 110 is manufactured by processing only the first injection port 112 and the opening 116 having a relatively large diameter to the aluminum base material, so that the defective rate is significantly lowered and processed. Speed is improved.

The nozzle module 160 inserted into the opening 116 can be mass-produced by applying a mass production system, and the burden due to defects is greatly reduced compared to processing the nozzle part directly on the aluminum base material. Conventionally, when it is determined that the machining of the nozzle unit is bad, all of the aluminum base material should be discarded, but now only the nozzle module 160 needs to be replaced.

In addition, since the nozzle module 160 and the lower plate 110 are manufactured in parallel, the production period can be greatly shortened, thereby reducing the overall production cost of the gas injection device.

And, since the nozzle module 160 is individually coupled to the lower plate 210, it is also possible to locally control the injection direction or speed of the gas by varying the hole diameter and the injection angle of the nozzle module 160 in some cases.

Second Embodiment

6 and 7 are a cross-sectional view and a perspective view of the gas injection device 100 according to the second embodiment of the present invention, without processing the second injection port 162 of the nozzle module 160 to a single diameter, gas inlet 162a, nozzle portion 162b, and diffusion portion 162c are characterized in that they are processed to have. Therefore, the height of the nozzle module 160 may be larger than that of a single diameter, and may be selected according to process conditions and other needs.

In addition, the first injection hole 112 of the lower plate 110 may be processed to increase in diameter toward the bottom, and may be tapered only after being manufactured in a straight shape as shown in FIG. 4.

Third Embodiment

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of the gas injection device 100 according to the third embodiment of the present invention. In the first and second embodiments, the first injection hole 112 is formed in each opening 116 formed in the lower plate 110. By forming only one, one second injection hole 162 corresponds to one opening. However, in the third embodiment, the openings 116 of the lower plate 110 are connected to a plurality of first injection holes 112, that is, one opening. It is formed to correspond to the above first injection port 112.

Referring to FIG. 8, in which the opening 116 and the plurality of nozzle modules 160 according to the third embodiment are coupled to the lower plate 110, nine first injection holes 112 are formed on the bottom of each opening 116. ) And nine nozzle modules 160 inserted into the openings 116 also have nine second injection holes 162 corresponding to the respective first injection holes 112.

At this time, the number of the first injection port 112 corresponding to each opening 116 is merely an example.

In the case where the plurality of nozzle modules 160 are provided with the plurality of second injection holes 162 in this manner, the rectangular pillar shape is most preferable, and the specific shape may be square or rectangular.

O-rings or the like may be provided at the interface between the inner circumferential surface of each opening 116 and the nozzle module 160 so as not to leak the process gas. It may be combined to be spaced apart from the bottom of the predetermined interval.

Here, a plurality of nozzle modules 160 each having only one second injection hole 162 may be inserted into one opening 116 by the number of first injection holes 112. In this case, however, the processing precision should be high so that the process gas is not injected directly through the first injection hole 112.

Fourth embodiment

9 and 10 are cross-sectional views and perspective views of the gas injection device 100 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention, as in the first to third embodiments, without forming an opening in the upper portion of the lower plate 110. The first injection port 112 is widely processed so that the 160 can be directly inserted into the first injection port 112.

That is, the plurality of nozzle modules 160 serving as the lower plate 110 are inserted into and coupled to the plurality of first injection holes 112.

The first injection port 112 and the nozzle module 160 are preferably threaded to prevent gas leakage, and an O-ring or the like may be installed at the interface.

Each of the plurality of nozzle modules 160 is formed with a second injection port 162, but as shown, only one may be formed, but two or more second injection holes 162 may be formed in one nozzle module 160. .

In addition, the second injection port 162 may have the same diameter as the upper and lower portions, orifice shape having a change in diameter as shown, that is, the gas inlet 162a, the nozzle 162b, and the diffusion 162c. ) May be provided.

In addition, the lower plate 110 and the nozzle module 160 generally have the same height (same thickness), but may have different heights.

In the above description of the preferred embodiment of the present invention, but also can be carried out by various modifications or variations by those skilled in the art, such embodiments also include the technical spirit of the present invention described in the claims to be described later If so, it would be natural to belong to the scope of the present invention.

100: gas injection device 110: lower plate
112: first injection nozzle 116: opening
162: second injection port 160: nozzle module

Claims (15)

A plate including a bottom surface having at least one first injection port for injecting a process gas into the reaction space, and a top surface in which the process gas is introduced from the outside and disposed opposite to the bottom surface; And
At least one nozzle module having a second injection port and coupled to an upper surface of the plate to correspond to the at least one first injection port
Gas injection device comprising a.
The method of claim 1,
On the upper surface of the plate, an opening communicating with the at least one first injection port is formed,
And the at least one nozzle module is inserted into and coupled to the opening.
The method of claim 2,
And said at least one nozzle module is removable from said opening.
The method of claim 2,
And the opening and the at least one nozzle module are screwed together.
The method of claim 2,
A locking jaw is formed on the inner circumferential surface of the opening,
The at least one nozzle module is a gas injection device mounted to the locking step so as to be spaced apart from the bottom of the opening.
The method of claim 2,
The opening is formed in the shape of a concave portion on the upper surface of the plate to correspond to one of the first injection port,
And a nozzle module inserted into the opening and coupled thereto.
The method of claim 2,
The opening is formed in the shape of a concave portion on the upper surface of the plate to correspond to two or more first injection port,
Two or more nozzle modules are inserted into the opening is coupled to the gas injection device.
The method of claim 2,
And a diameter of the opening is greater than a diameter of the at least one first injection port.
The method of claim 2,
The at least one nozzle module is a gas injection device is a cylinder or a square cylinder.
The method of claim 1,
The at least one nozzle module is a gas injection device that is directly coupled to the first injection port coupled.
11. The method of claim 10,
The first injection port and the at least one nozzle module is screwed gas injection device.
11. The method of claim 10,
And the plate and the at least one nozzle module have the same height.
The method of claim 1,
And the second injection port has a diameter smaller than the at least one first injection port.
The method of claim 1,
The second injection port is a gas injection device consisting of a gas inlet, a nozzle unit and a diffusion unit.
The method of claim 1,
The at least one nozzle module is a plurality of nozzle module, the second injection port of the plurality of nozzle module gas injection device having a different hole diameter and injection angle from each other.

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