KR101453194B1 - Manufacturing method of window panel for touch screen - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen, comprising the steps of: (a) designing a cell for a plurality of touch screen window panels on a glass substrate; (b) (C) partially processing the straight portion of the cell for the touch screen window panel; (d) hardening the cell for the touch screen window panel; (e) (F) completely cutting the uncut portion in the step (c), and (g) finishing the cut surface of the window panel cell. The cell-based reinforcing effect can be obtained.

Description

Technical Field [0001] The present invention relates to a manufacturing method of a window panel for a touch screen,

The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen, and more particularly, to a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen, which is easy to process a curved portion and a hole and can improve a reinforcing property of a cut surface.

In recent years, a projective capacitive touch method has been mainly applied to a touch screen used as an input device of an IT device such as a smart phone or a tablet PC. This type of capacitive touch screen is composed of two transparent conductive films constituting the touch sensor and a GFF type combined with a tempered glass window, a GF2 type in which a single film formed with a touch sensor on both sides is combined with a tempered glass window, The G1, GG2, and G2 types can be categorized as G1F type in which the transparent electrodes constituting the sensor are formed on tempered glass and one film, and GG, GG2, G2 type in which tempered glass window is attached to glass on which touch sensors are formed on both sides.

On the other hand, in the touch screen manufacturing technology, efforts are being made to improve durability and quality in order to simplify the manufacturing process and ensure sufficient reliability in a user environment. Since the touch screen is basically mounted on the front surface of the display device, In particular, in the case of a portable device, a high light transmittance of the touch screen itself is essential to minimize power consumption, and a thin touch screen panel is required for this purpose.

In recent years, a glass window panel having a thickness of 1.0 mm or less is used for a touch screen for a mobile phone. However, such a touch screen may cause scratches on the touch screen panel when information is input using a finger or a pen, It is common to use reinforced glass instead of plain glass because of the risk of breakage when the phone is placed in the back pocket of the pants.

The strengthening method of glass can be distinguished by heat strengthening and chemical strengthening. In the case of thin glass of about 1.0 mm used for mobile devices such as mobile phones, chemical strengthening is mainly used.

This chemical strengthening is achieved by bringing a glass containing Na ⁺ ions into contact with a salt containing K ⁺ ions so that the ion exchange of Na ⁺ and K ⁺ proceeds from the surface of the glass to the inside thereof. Therefore, K ⁺ is located at the position occupied by Na ⁺ in the glass structure, and the compressive force is generated around the network structure because the K ⁺ ion radius (1.33 Å) is larger than the Na ⁺ ion radius (0.98 Å) This phenomenon is called crowing or stuffing.

On the other hand, chemical strengthening has the advantage that thin glass can be strengthened and stress is not generated on the transmission phase, but since the compressive stress layer of the surface is thin compared to the heat strengthening, There are disadvantages.

The fracture pattern of glass exhibits several characteristics, more specifically, a large variation in strength, breakage at the surface, and breakage in the case of tensile stress. From these characteristics, it can be seen that it is difficult to maintain the intrinsic strength of the glass material and the strength is influenced by external factors.

The study of this destruction can be summarized by the Griffith theory. In this theory, the extrinsic factor that determines the strength is defined as the microscopic flaw on the glass surface called the Griffith Flaw. That is, when tensile stress acts on the glass, stress concentration occurs at the tip of the Griffith flaw, which causes fracture of the material due to cracking. Therefore, in order to maintain the strength of the glass product, a method of removing minute scratches on the glass surface, suppressing scratches, and preventing flaws from spreading can be considered. In particular, chemical strengthening is one way of creating compressive stress on the surface to prevent flaws from expanding among these methods.

As a method for minimizing the thickness of the touch screen panel, there is a method of reducing the thickness of the glass itself as well as a method of forming a touch electrode or the like on one surface of the tempered window panel so that a separate substrate for the touch screen panel is not required A method of reducing the thickness has also been proposed.

The manufacturing method of such a touch screen window panel includes a cell unit method in which a glass substrate in a state of a disc glass (hereinafter, referred to as a "ledge") is cut in a cell unit and individually reinforced to form a window panel, A window unit panel method is used in which a glass substrate of a glass substrate is first reinforced and then cut in a cell unit to form a window panel.

In the case of the cell unit type, as shown in FIG. 1, a glass substrate in a laminating state is cut in a cell unit, a reinforcing process is performed on each cell unit substrate, and a touch electrode is formed on the surface, It is necessary to use a jig. However, there is a problem that the manufacturing yield is lowered due to the deviation of the self-processing tolerance of the jig on which the cell-unit window panel is mounted and the cutting tolerance of the cell-unit window panel itself.

On the other hand, in the case of the lndustrial unit system, as shown in FIG. 2, the glass in the laminating state is strengthened at one time, so that the time required for the reinforcement processing can be saved, Since the touch screen can be manufactured, the manufacturing process can be simplified and the manufacturing yield can be increased as compared with the cell unit method.

However, there is a problem that the strength of the reinforcement layer is reduced due to the strengthening layer loss at the cut surface portion and the presence of microcracks generated in the cutting process when the cell unit is cut after strengthening treatment. And there is a disadvantage in that the process cost is increased. In particular, from the viewpoint of the quality of the machined section obtained after the strengthening treatment, the curved and the hole machining are more difficult than the straight machining, and the degree of the surface is less than the machined section quality standard of the conventional cell unit type product .

Recently, a polishing process has been adopted to polish a cut surface using a grinder to remove microcracks in the cut surface and to reinforce the second cutting process. However, even in such a post process, the straight machining process can proceed relatively easily, , It is difficult to apply mass production to the curved portion and the hole processing portion because the second strengthening treatment is very difficult.

Therefore, in order to have competitiveness, it is required that the quality of the curved and hole-processed cross-section is higher than the quality level obtained from the conventional cell-based method It is important to develop a process that satisfies

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the problems of the prior art described above, and it is an object of the present invention to solve the problem of a curved portion or a hole which is difficult to be machined after reinforcement treatment in a ladder unit method, The present invention also provides a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen.

As means for solving the above-mentioned technical problem,

The method includes the steps of: (a) designing a cell for a plurality of touch screen window panels on a glass substrate; (b) cutting the curved portion of the cell for the touch screen window panel completely; and (c) (D) reinforcing the cell for the touch screen window panel, (e) completely cutting the uncut straight portion in the step (c), and and f) finishing the cut surface of the cell for the window panel.

In this case, the method may further include the step of (g) forming an electrode pattern on the cell for the touch screen panel, wherein the step (g) is performed after the step (d) or after the step .

In this case, the step (b) may further include a step of completely cutting the hole in the window panel cell.

In this case, the step (c) may process the upper and lower portions of the straight line portion to have the same depth so that the center portion of the straight line portion is connected between the glass substrate and the cell for the touch screen window panel.

In this case, the thickness of the end face of the straight line portion may be less than twice the depth of reinforcement by the step (d).

In this case, the thickness of the end face of the straight portion may be 100 탆.

In this case, the step (c) may partially wet-process the straight portion, or may perform surface treatment on the machined surface after performing mechanical machining or a combination of wet etching and mechanical machining.

In this case, in the step (e), the raw straight line portion may be cut with a pulse laser or etched using hydrogen fluoride.

In this case, step (f) may be performed after grinding or polishing the cut surface.

According to the present invention, it is possible to solve the problem of deterioration of the strengthening effect occurring in the existing ladder unit method by completely cutting the curved portion or the hole which is hard to process relatively hardly, hardening the straight portion partially, have.

In addition, it is possible to simplify the manufacturing process compared to the conventional cell-unit manufacturing process, thereby improving the workability and production yield and reducing the process cost.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a process diagram showing a conventional method of manufacturing a cell panel type touch panel screen panel,
FIG. 2 is a process diagram showing a manufacturing method of a window panel for touchscreens according to the related art,
FIGS. 3 to 5 are process drawings showing a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen according to the present invention;
6 is a diagram illustrating a glass substrate design example of a manufacturing method of a window panel for a touch screen according to the present invention,
FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view of a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen according to the present invention,
8 is a view showing a cross-sectional structure after a rectilinear portion is strengthened in a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen according to the present invention.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art can easily carry out the present invention. The present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. In order to clearly explain the present invention, parts not related to the description are omitted, and similar parts are denoted by similar reference numerals throughout the specification.

6 is a view illustrating a glass substrate design example of a method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen according to the present invention. FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view showing a cross-sectional structure of the touch panel after the straight portion is reinforced in the method for manufacturing a touch panel for a touch screen according to the present invention. Fig.

As shown in FIG. 3, in the method of manufacturing a window panel for a touch screen according to the present invention, a curved portion or a hole, which is difficult to be machined after reinforcement processing, is applied before reinforcement processing, In order to minimize the loss of reinforcement layer in the cell unit window panel by partially processing the parts, and then performing the whole processing, the technical features are described below.

First, as shown in FIG. 6, a plurality of touch screen window panel cells 100 are designed at regular intervals on a glass substrate 110 having a ledge, that is, a glass plate.

The cell 100 for a touch screen panel is formed in a substantially rectangular shape. More specifically, the cell 100 for a touch screen panel includes a straight line portion 100a formed on four sides and a curved line portion 100b formed to be rounded at four corners. And a hole 100c formed at the lower center of the hole 100c. That is, the present invention is directed to a cell for a touch screen window panel including a linear portion that is easy to process and a curved portion and a hole that are relatively difficult to process.

However, in the present invention, the cell 100 for the touch screen panel is not limited to a rectangular shape as described above, but may be formed in a circular shape, an elliptical shape, or another polygonal shape as necessary, and the straight line portion 100a, It should be understood that the curved portion 100b and the position of the hole 100c are also freely deformable.

For the sake of convenience of explanation, only 30 pieces of the touch screen window panel cells 100 are arranged on the glass substrate 110 in the form of 6 × 5, but the number of cells of the present invention is limited to this And may be appropriately increased or decreased in consideration of the size of the glass substrate 110.

When the design of the touch screen window panel cell 100 is completed, the curved portion 100b and the hole 100c are completely cut. Here, when cutting the curved portion 100b, it is preferable that the cutting portion is appropriately designed and processed in a T-shape, a cross shape, a square shape or the like in consideration of the edges of the glass substrate and other cells arranged around the cell.

As a method of cutting the curved portion 100b and the hole 100c, a physical method such as laser cutting, CNC machining, diamond wheel cutting, water jet cutting, etc. is preferable, but chemical methods such as etching using hydrogen fluoride (HF) Or a combination of physical and chemical methods is possible. In this case, since the above-described processing method is well-known and established techniques, detailed description thereof will be omitted here.

Then, the straight portion 100a of the cell 100 for the touch screen window panel is partially processed.

7, the upper and lower portions of the rectilinear section 100a are processed to have the same depth so that the central portion of the rectilinear section 100a is separated from the glass substrate 110, Thereby maintaining the connection state between the cells 100 for the touch screen window panel.

In this case, the thickness of the end face of the straight portion 100a is preferably within about two times, for example, about 100 탆, of the depth of the reinforcing layer formed in the reinforcing treatment. This is because when the thickness of the central portion exceeds twice the depth of the reinforcing layer, the reinforcing effect can not be obtained even by the post-processing of the cut surface because the area of the portion not reinforced at the time of cutting is expanded.

In the present invention, the partial machining of the straight portion 100a may be performed by wet etching, mechanical machining or a mixture of both, as in the case of machining the curved portion 100b and the hole 100c, It is preferable that surface treatment is carried out in order to prevent surface cracking of the machined surface after machining.

When the partial processing of the straight line portion 100a is completed, the touch screen window panel cell 100 is reinforced. As the strengthening treatment method, chemical strengthening may be applied. More specifically, the glass substrate 110 may be immersed in a salt bath containing KNO ₃ salt and maintained at 450 ° C for 6 hours.

As described above, since the curved portion 100b and the hole 100c are completely penetrated when the glass substrate 110 is reinforced, the cut surface can be completely strengthened, In the case of the straight portion 100a, since the upper and lower portions are processed and the surface is exposed, the strengthening progresses as in the case of the curved portion 100b as shown in FIG. That is, since the central portion of the rough section of the straight portion 100a has a thickness of about 100 mu m, if the strengthening depth (DOL: Depth of Layer) of 50 mu m is selected, It is possible to obtain the strengthening effect as a whole. For reference, the depth of strengthening by chemical strengthening can be varied depending on the type of tempered glass. In the case of Sodalime glass, 8 ~ 12 ㎛ is generally strengthened.

Thereafter, an electrode pattern is formed on the cell 100 for the touch screen window panel. Specifically, a decor is printed on one surface of the cell 100 for a touch screen panel panel by screen printing or the like, and then ITO is deposited and etched to pattern the touch transparent electrode. According to the present invention, since the electrode pattern forming process is performed in units of ledgers, the production yield can be remarkably improved as compared with the cell unit method.

In this case, the above-described electrode pattern forming process may be performed after the cutting process is completed as shown in FIGS. That is, in the present invention, as long as the cut surface of the cell 100 for a touch screen panel can be strengthened as described above, the order of the electrode pattern forming process is not particularly limited, do.

When the formation of the electrode pattern is completed, the uncut portion of the straight portion 100a is completely cut. In this case, it is preferable to use a pulsed laser capable of machining a section after the strengthening treatment or etching with hydrogen fluoride.

Finally, the cut surface of the cell 100 for a touch screen panel cut in a cell unit is processed as described above. Specifically, all processing is completed when the machined surface is surface-treated to prevent cracking after grinding or polishing the cut surface. That is, when the final cut after screen printing and ITO patterning, a very small area of up to 5% of the thickness cross-section may not be sufficiently strengthened. This can be solved by the post-processing as described above, have.

As described above, according to the present invention, in the present invention, a portion that is difficult to process after the reinforcing treatment such as a curved portion or a hole is finished before the reinforcing treatment, and a straight portion that is relatively easy to process is partially processed to have a predetermined depth By processing, it is possible to solve the problem of deterioration of workability and strengthening effect which was a problem in the conventional manufacturing method of the ledger unit method.

The manufacturing method of the window panel for a touch screen according to the present invention has been described above. Hereinafter, a specific embodiment of the present invention will be described. The present invention can be more clearly understood by the following examples, which are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

Example

A 0.7 mm thick Sodalime glass substrate for a touch screen panel was prepared in a size of 370 mm × 470 mm and a total of 30 cells were arranged on a prepared glass substrate in a 6 × 5 shape. Thereafter, the curved portion and the hole were completely cut through machining, and the straight portion was partially processed in the same manner. The straight portion was processed to a depth of 0.34 mm from the upper surface and a depth of 0.34 mm from the lower surface, so that the center portion of the section remained about 0.02 mm. In this case, it may be difficult to handle the unit of the ledger due to the microcracks on the machined surface during handling. Therefore, the paste containing hydrogen fluoride (HF) was post-treated and then cleaned in order to prevent the development of surface microcracks. Thereafter, chemical strengthening was carried out in a salt bath containing KNO ₃ salt at a temperature of 450 ° C for 6 hours, screen printing, ITO deposition and etching process were carried out to pattern the transparent electrode by a laser light method, . Subsequently, the uncut portion of the straight portion was finally machined by machining, and the cut surface was ground and polished using a diamond wheel, and the surface was treated so that residual microcracks did not advance on the cut surface to complete the strengthening effect.

As a result of measuring the strength of the touch screen panel manufactured as described above, the strength of 530 MPa, which is close to the initial strength of 550 MPa, was obtained. Thus, according to the present invention, almost the same reinforcing effect as that of the cell- . Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to prevent the strength of the cell side portion from being lowered, and since a large number of cells are introduced into the process by the laminating method, the deviation of the process lot can be reduced and the production time can be shortened, Is expected to be minimized.

The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail with reference to the drawings. It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.

Therefore, the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims rather than the foregoing detailed description, and all changes or modifications derived from the meaning, range, and equivalence of the claims are included in the scope of the present invention. .

100: Cell for touch screen window panel
100a: straight portion 100b: curved portion
100c: hole 110: glass substrate

Claims (9)

A manufacturing method of a window panel for a touch screen including a linear portion, a curved portion and a hole,
(a) designing a cell for a plurality of touch screen window panels on a glass substrate;
(b) completely cutting the curved portion and the hole of the cell for the touch screen window panel;
(c) partially processing a straight portion of the cell for the touch screen window panel;
(d) reinforcing the cell for the touch screen window panel including the partially processed straight line portion;
(e) completely cutting the uncut linear portion in the step (c); And
(f) finishing the cut surface of the window panel cell;
The method comprising the steps of: The method according to claim 1,
(g) forming an electrode pattern on the cell for the touch screen panel, wherein the step (g) is performed after the step (d) or after the step (f) Wherein the method comprises the steps of: delete The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the step (c) includes processing the upper and lower portions of the straight line portion to have the same depth so that the center portion of the straight line portion is connected between the glass substrate and the cell for the touch screen window panel. A method of manufacturing a panel. 5. The method of claim 4,
Wherein the thickness of the end face of the straight line portion is less than twice the depth of reinforcement by the step (d). delete delete delete delete

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