KR102089130B1 - Apparatus for manufacturing flat panel display - Google Patents

Abstract

An apparatus for manufacturing a flat panel display having an antistatic device suitable for static elimination of a glass substrate under high vacuum.
The flat panel display manufacturing apparatus (ID) has a processing chamber (1) in which processing is performed on the glass substrate (S), and a transport path (3) forming a path for carrying in and out the glass substrate (S) to the processing chamber (1). The electron used for the static electricity elimination of the glass substrate S toward the inside of the vacuum container, provided on the outer wall surface of the vacuum container which comprises the processing chamber 1 and the conveyance path 3 in a vacuum atmosphere, and which comprises the conveyance path 3 A static electricity elimination device (O) that discharges is connected.

Description

Flat panel display manufacturing apparatus {APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING FLAT PANEL DISPLAY}

The present invention relates to a flat panel display manufacturing apparatus that performs a predetermined treatment on a glass substrate under vacuum, and relates to a device having a function of removing static electricity charged on a glass substrate.

Manufacturing processes for flat panel displays such as liquid crystal displays, plasma displays, and organic EL displays are performed under vacuum.

Specific examples of the manufacturing process include an ion implantation process for introducing impurities, an exposure process for patterning a circuit pattern, a film formation process for forming a thin film, and the like.

In the implementation of each step, the positioning of the glass substrate using a transport robot or the like into the processing chamber is performed at a processing position of the glass substrate using a substrate carrying mechanism.

When conveyance or positioning of the glass substrate is performed, electric charges are charged to the glass substrate due to friction or peeling between objects. If the charged electric charge is left as it is, adhesion of the glass substrate or electrostatic discharge occurs. In addition, particles attracted to the charged glass substrate become a factor, and there is a possibility that the substrate processing is poor.

Therefore, it has been conventionally used to remove the charge of the glass substrate using plasma.

Specifically, there is a static electricity elimination method using the ionization apparatus described in Patent Document 1 or Patent Document 2. In this static elimination method, an inert gas such as nitrogen or argon is charged into the room after evacuation. Thereafter, the gas is irradiated with ultraviolet rays, or the plasma is turned on in an atmosphere of an inert gas to ionize the inert gas, thereby causing plasma. Lastly, by exposing the glass substrate to the plasma of the generated inert gas, charge removal of the charge charged to the glass substrate is performed.

[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. 2004-241420 [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Publication No. 9-324260

In the technique described in Patent Literature 1 or Patent Literature 2, since it is necessary to fill the room with an inert gas during static electricity elimination, it is unsuitable for use under high vacuum.

In the present invention, there is provided a flat panel display manufacturing apparatus having an antistatic device suitable for static elimination of a glass substrate under high vacuum.

Flat panel display manufacturing apparatus,

A processing chamber in which processing is performed on the glass substrate;

A conveying path forming a path for carrying in and out of a glass substrate to the processing chamber

It includes, the processing chamber and the conveying path is in a vacuum atmosphere,

On the outer wall surface of the vacuum container constituting the transport path, a static electricity elimination device that emits electrons used for static elimination of the glass substrate is connected toward the inside of the vacuum container.

If the negatively charged glass substrate is also subject to static elimination,

The antistatic device,

A plasma chamber in which a plasma is generated in the room is provided by the ionization of the introduced gas, and it is preferable to discharge the plasma used for static elimination of the glass substrate from the room.

In order to improve the utilization efficiency of the gas introduced into the plasma chamber,

The antistatic device,

A plasma transport path for transporting plasma from the plasma chamber to the transport path,

In the cut surface perpendicular to the transport direction of the plasma, it is preferable that the cut surface of the plasma transport path is smaller than the cut surface of the plasma chamber.

In order to make it easy to introduce the plasma generated in the plasma chamber to the transport path side,

It is preferable that a magnetic field along the transport direction of the plasma is formed in the plasma transport path.

In order to avoid the loss of plasma on the inner wall surface of the plasma transport path,

A permanent magnet for generating a cusp magnetic field may be provided on the outer periphery of the plasma transport path.

In the static electricity elimination apparatus of the flat panel display manufacturing apparatus, in order to perform maintenance of the static electricity elimination apparatus while maintaining the conveyance path side in a vacuum,

It is preferable that a valve for opening and closing a transport path is provided in the plasma transport path.

In order to efficiently supply plasma to both surfaces of a glass substrate,

In the transport path, it is preferable that plasma is supplied from the side of the glass substrate to the glass substrate through the plasma transport path.

Since the static eliminator is connected to the outer wall surface of the vacuum container constituting the conveyance path, and the static electricity of the glass substrate is performed based on the electrons supplied from the static elimination apparatus, there is no need to fill the conveyance path with gas. For this reason, it becomes possible to maintain the inside of a conveyance path with high vacuum.

1 is a schematic plan view showing an example of a flat panel display manufacturing apparatus.
2 is a schematic plan view showing an example of an antistatic device.
3 is an explanatory diagram of a plasma irradiation direction for a glass substrate.

1 is a schematic plan view of an ion doping device ID. The ion doping device (ID) is a flat panel display manufacturing device, and is used for manufacturing TFT elements. In FIG. 1, the illustration of the upstream side (a portion related to the transport of the ion beam) is omitted from the processing chamber 1 irrespective of the arrangement of the static elimination device O which is a characteristic part of the present invention.

The glass substrate S is accommodated in the substrate storage chamber 4 on the atmospheric side. When the substrate processing is performed, the glass substrate S is conveyed by the conveyance path of the arrow shown by broken line X1.

Specifically, the glass substrate S is transported from the substrate storage chamber 4 to the vacuum preliminary chamber 2 by the standby robot R2. Then, the glass substrate S is conveyed from the vacuum preliminary chamber 2 to the substrate support mechanism 6 of the processing chamber 1 by the vacuum robot R1 of the intermediate chamber 3.

After the substrate processing, the glass substrate S is conveyed to the storage chamber 4 by the conveyance path of the arrow shown by broken line X2.

The transfer of the glass substrate S by the vacuum robot R1 or the standby robot R2, the arrangement of the glass substrate S to the substrate support mechanism 6, or the glass substrate S from the substrate support mechanism 6 In the removal, charges due to friction or peeling are charged to the glass substrate S, and this is accumulated.

In the present invention, electric charges charged on the glass substrate S are removed by using the static eliminator O connected to the outer wall surface of the vacuum container constituting the intermediate chamber 3.

In the prior art, an inert gas was charged into a room where static elimination of the glass substrate was performed before static elimination, and then the inert gas charged in the room was plasmad, and the plasma was used to defrost the glass substrate.

On the other hand, in the static elimination device (O) of the present invention, since the glass substrate (S) is statically removed based on the plasma supplied from the static elimination device (O), it is necessary to fill the intermediate chamber (3) with an inert gas. There is no From this, the static elimination apparatus O of the present invention can be used under high vacuum (eg, 10 ^-4 Pa band).

The timing of supplying the plasma from the static elimination device O may be performed when the potential of the glass substrate is measured by the potentiometer 5 attached to the ceiling of the intermediate chamber 3 and the measurement result exceeds the reference value. . However, such measurement is not essential, and may be configured to always supply plasma.

In addition, the position where the electrometer 5 is attached may be attached to the bottom surface of the intermediate chamber 3 or the robot hand of the vacuum robot R1. Furthermore, various configurations are conceivable, such as attaching to a room other than the intermediate chamber 3 or attaching a plurality of electrometers 5.

In FIG. 1, a configuration is described in which the static elimination device O is connected to the intermediate chamber 3, but the connection destination of the static elimination device O is not limited to the intermediate chamber 3. For example, the static elimination device O may be connected to the vacuum preliminary chamber 2 that can be switched between the atmosphere and the vacuum atmosphere, and is a place where the glass substrate is conveyed under vacuum (as a conveyance path that forms a path for carrying in and out of the glass substrate). Any place) may be used.

In addition, the place where the plasma is supplied from the static elimination device O and the place where the electric potential of the glass substrate S is measured by the electrometer 5 need not coincide. If plasma is supplied on the basis of the measurement result by the electrometer 5, the plasma is supplied from the static elimination device O to the place where the potential measurement by the electrometer 5 is performed in the path through which the glass substrate S is conveyed. If it is set to the same place as the place where it is made, or if it is set as a shearing edge than this place, plasma can be appropriately supplied according to the measurement result.

2 shows an example of the configuration of the static eliminator O.

The static electricity elimination device O is attached to the outer wall surface of the vacuum container constituting the intermediate chamber 3 through the insulating plate 11. The main part of the static elimination device (O) is a plasma that emits plasma (P) composed of electrons and ions, and plasma (P) generated in the plasma chamber (13) to the middle chamber (3). It consists of a transport path (12).

In the plasma chamber 13, an inert gas such as xenon or argon introduced into the room through the gas port G is ionized by hot electrons emitted from the filament 16 to generate plasma P.

In order to facilitate the generation of plasma in the plasma chamber or the discharge of plasma P from the static elimination device, the static electricity elimination device O includes a filament power supply Vf and an arc power supply Va (shown in voltages of tens of volts). ), And withdrawal power source Ve (applied voltage is several tens of volts).

Around the plasma chamber 13, a permanent magnet 14 for generating a cusp magnetic field for preventing the loss of electrons and ions from the inner wall surface of the plasma chamber 13 is disposed.

A pair of coils 15 are wound on the outer periphery of the plasma transport path 12 to generate a magnetic field B along the transport path. The plasma P of the plasma transport path 12 is captured by the magnetic field B, and is avoided due to collision with the wall surface of the transport path, and is discharged into the intermediate chamber 3.

The configuration of the coil 15 is not limited to a pair. For example, when the plasma transport path 12 is short, the number of coils 15 may be one, and this may be omitted. In addition, when the plasma transport path 12 is long, the number of coils may be increased to three or more. Furthermore, a long coil may be continuous without forming a gap between the pair of coils 15. On the other hand, instead of the coil 15, in order to avoid the loss of plasma on the wall surface of the plasma transport path 12, the permanent magnet for generating a cusp magnetic field near the inner wall surface of the plasma transport path 12 is transferred to the plasma transport path. It may be placed on the outer periphery of (12).

In a plane perpendicular to the transport direction of the plasma, the cut surfaces of the plasma transport path 12 and the plasma chamber 13 are compared, and the cut surfaces of the plasma transport path 12 are smaller than the cut surfaces of the plasma chamber 13. . From this relationship, omission of the inert gas introduced into the plasma chamber 13 to the plasma transport path 12 side is alleviated. Accordingly, the efficiency of using gas according to plasma generation in the plasma chamber 13 is improved. In addition, the cutting surface referred to here refers to a surface including not only the wall surface of the plasma chamber 13 or the plasma transport path 12 but also the interior space of each chamber.

With respect to the aforementioned cutting surfaces, the cutting surfaces of the plasma transport path 12 and the plasma chamber 13 may be constant in the transport direction of the plasma, but may not be. For example, when the plasma transport path 12 is composed of a cylindrical vacuum container whose diameter changes along the transport direction of the plasma, the aforementioned cutting surface is not constant. The same can be said of the plasma chamber 13.

When the diameters of one or both members are changed in the transport direction of the plasma, comparison of the aforementioned cut surfaces is performed where the cut surfaces are the smallest in each member.

The plasma transport path 12 is provided with a valve V for opening and closing the transport path. By providing this valve V, it becomes possible to maintain the intermediate chamber 3 side in a vacuum state, and to open the plasma chamber 13 side to the atmosphere to maintain the static electricity elimination device O.

The end of the plasma transport path 12 on which the plasma P is discharged may be located on the wall of the vacuum chamber of the intermediate chamber 3 as shown, but the plasma P may be located at a position close to the glass substrate S. ) To improve the static electricity elimination efficiency, it may be projected into the intermediate chamber 3.

In addition, it is not essential to provide the above-described plasma transport path 12, and this may be omitted and the plasma chamber 13 may be directly connected to the intermediate chamber 3.

Normally, the glass substrate S is easily charged positively, but may be negatively charged. In addition, it may also occur when two surfaces of the front and rear surfaces of the glass substrate S are charged with different potentials. Which potential to be charged depends on the processing content of the glass substrate S performed in the flat panel display manufacturing apparatus.

For example, when the film-forming process is performed on the glass substrate S, the potential of the glass substrate S by the potentiometer 5 is measured as a negative potential, as long as the property of the film tends to be negatively charged.

3 illustrates an example of irradiating the plasma P from various directions with respect to the glass substrate S.

In Fig. 3A, plasma P is irradiated from the side of the glass substrate S. In this configuration, since the plasma P is supplied to both surfaces of the upper and lower surfaces of the glass substrate S, both surfaces can be statically removed.

When the dimension of the glass substrate S is large, in the configuration of FIG. 3A, the plasma P is irradiated from only one side of the glass substrate S. It is concerned that the static elimination at Esau is not sufficiently performed.

At this point, as shown in Fig. 3B, plasma P may be irradiated from both sides of the glass substrate S.

Further, as shown in Fig. 3C, the plasma P may be irradiated on the upper and lower surfaces of the glass substrate S. In this case, it is not possible to expect the plasma P irradiated on the upper surface of the glass substrate S to return to the lower surface side, as compared with the configuration of FIG. 3 (A) or FIG. 3 (B). It is preferable to irradiate plasma P also on the lower surface side of S).

However, if the surface to be destaticized is to end with only one surface of the glass substrate S, the plasma P may be irradiated at a position facing the surface to be destaticized.

On the other hand, if the problems such as electrostatic discharge are reliably solved, it is preferable to remove the both surfaces of the glass substrate S.

After the static elimination of the glass substrate S, there is a fear that charging is generated in the glass substrate S by ions having a positive charge in the plasma or electrons having a negative charge.

However, since the potential of the withdrawal voltage Ve shown in the configuration example of FIG. 2 is several tens of volts, even if the glass substrate S is charged with ions or electrons in plasma, the potential of the glass substrate S is only tens of volts. do. This charging voltage is slight in view of the fact that the potential of the glass substrate S due to peeling charging reaches several kilovolts, which is unlikely to cause an electrostatic discharge problem due to this, and affects the yield of the glass substrate treatment. It is not given.

In Fig. 1, an ion doping device is exemplified as a flat panel display manufacturing device. However, the flat panel display manufacturing apparatus targeted by the present invention is not limited to this.

For example, a multi-chamber type device such as a film forming device may be used. Further, an inline type device in which individual devices are combined in series may be used.

In the configuration of the present invention, any flat panel display manufacturing apparatus can be applied as long as the static eliminator O is connected to the outer wall surface of the vacuum container constituting the conveyance path of the glass substrate S under vacuum.

In the above-described embodiment, a configuration in which the plasma P is emitted from the static eliminator O has been described, but a configuration in which only electrons are emitted instead of the plasma P may be used. For example, by stopping the supply of the inert gas through the gas port G with the configuration shown in FIG. 2, it is also possible to discharge electrons from the static eliminator O into the intermediate chamber 3 without generating plasma. In the case of supplying only electrons, it is not necessary to provide the gas port G in the plasma chamber 13.

Whether only electrons or plasma P is supplied may be appropriately selected, for example, based on the measurement result by the electrometer 5.

In the above embodiment, electron shock was used as a method of plasma generation, but plasma may be generated by high-frequency discharge.

In addition, as a configuration for emitting hot electrons, instead of the filaments, a heat-dissipating cathode or a single cathode combining a plate-like cathode and a filament may be employed.

In FIG. 3 (B) and FIG. 3 (C), although it is a structure which arrange | positions a some static electricity elimination apparatus in different places to the top, bottom, left, and right of a glass substrate S, the multiple static electricity elimination apparatus O is up and down of the glass substrate S It may be arranged on the same side on the left and right.

For example, in the configuration of Fig. 3A, the static electricity elimination device O may be arranged in the vertical direction of the paper or in all directions of the paper. In addition, a plurality of static electricity elimination devices may be treated as one unit.

In addition, it is needless to say that various improvements and modifications may be made in a range not departing from the gist of the present invention in addition to the above.

ID: Ion doping device (flat panel display manufacturing device)
O: static electricity elimination device
S: Glass substrate
B: Magnetic field
V: Valve
3: Intermediate room
5: Potentiometer
12: Plasma transport route
13: plasma room
15: coil

Claims (7)

A processing chamber in which processing is performed on the glass substrate;
A conveying path forming a path for carrying in and out of a glass substrate to the processing chamber
It includes, the processing chamber and the conveying path is in a vacuum atmosphere,
On the outer wall surface of the vacuum container constituting the transport path, a static electricity elimination device that emits electrons used for static electricity elimination of the glass substrate is connected toward the inside of the vacuum container,
The static electricity elimination apparatus is equipped with a plasma chamber in which plasma is generated indoors by ionization of the introduced gas, and the flat panel display manufacturing apparatus emits plasma used for static electricity elimination of the glass substrate from the same room. delete According to claim 1, The antistatic device,
A plasma transport path for transporting plasma from the plasma chamber to the transport path,
An apparatus for manufacturing a flat panel display, wherein a cut surface perpendicular to the transport direction of the plasma is smaller than the cut surface of the plasma chamber. The flat panel display manufacturing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein a magnetic field along a transport direction of plasma is formed in the plasma transport path. The flat panel display manufacturing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein a permanent magnet for generating a cusp magnetic field is provided in the outer periphery of the plasma transport path. The flat panel display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 3 to 5, wherein a valve for opening and closing a transport path is provided in the plasma transport path. The flat panel display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 3 to 5, wherein in the transport path, plasma is supplied from the side of the glass substrate to the glass substrate through the plasma transport path.

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