KR20030069953A - Repairing Apparatus for Flat Panel Display Devices - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: An apparatus for correcting a defect of a flat panel display is provided to completely repair a circuit pattern of a substrate with a photo resist removing apparatus and a photo resist applying apparatus. CONSTITUTION: A photo resist removing apparatus removes photo resist existing at an unintended area. A photo resist applying apparatus applies photo resist to an area on which the photo resist is not applied. A fluid is connected to a fluid applying nozzle(1) to be discharged to a substrate through the fluid applying nozzle by a quantitative exhaust/recovery unit(2). The quantitative exhaust/recovery unit is installed between a fluid tank(3) and the fluid applying nozzle for cooling or heating the fluid. The application of the fluid is controllable by control signals(4,5,6). The photo resist applying apparatus is inter worked with an X-Y stage for applying the fluid in a wanted shape. The photo resist removing apparatus removes the applied fluid to obtain a circuit pattern of which a defect is removed.

Description

Repairing Apparatus for Flat Panel Display Devices

The present invention relates to an apparatus for removing a defect in a circuit pattern of a photolithography process of a flat panel display device such as a TFT LCD, an STN LCD, a PDP, and an OLED, and forming a missing pattern to implement a complete circuit.

In general, flat panel display elements such as TFT LCDs have horizontal and vertical signal lines having electrical conductivity of defects such as pixel defects, and transistors for applying voltage to each pixel and controlling directions. Since it is directly connected to the defect of the device, it is necessary to distinguish and remove the defect in each process. Such a method for removing defects of a flat panel display device is generally a method of cutting a defective part by laser beam after the formation of an electric circuit or a required thin film pattern by etching, or a method of removing the transparent object blocking the optical path using a laser. A method of separating a shorted signal line by a laser beam, a method of forming a conductive wiring by a laser induction coating method, and a method of correcting a defect are used.

This method, which is currently used, has many problems in correcting defects since it is executed after circuit formation, and also has a problem of probable subsequent defects such as poor reliability after product release. Since the defect correction method cannot apply the photoresist at the local position due to the production process characteristics of the flat panel display device, a defect correction method is used in a subsequent process. The conventional defect correction method uses a method of removing a thin film pattern by a laser, because it is very difficult to remove the pattern formed by a chemical method and form a desired pattern again, and also fuses like a semiconductor chip. Since it is difficult to fix defects completely completely by cutting, at least the strength of the defects is reduced. In addition, the use of a laser as a defect correction means is easy to remove defects without any additional process in the middle of the production of the flat panel display device in the operation of the process is to use a laser that can generate a strong energy.

The present invention provides a method for correcting defects in the defect inducing process of the flat panel display device to solve the above problems, to minimize the defects in subsequent processes after the circuit pattern is formed and to remove the defect in the causative process Photolith maximizes the reliability of the device and enables the next etching process to be performed while maintaining the electrical or pattern shape intact by adding or removing the photoresist pattern in the photolithography process in which the pattern is formed. It is an object of the present invention to provide a resist defect correction apparatus.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is to apply a photoresist to correct the disconnection defect generated in the photolithography process using the device disclosed in the present invention that can remove the defects of the photolithography process before the etching process A photoresist coating device comprising a metered-discharge device, an exposure device, and a laser curing device for curing the exposed photoresist, a high energy laser having a pulse width of several hundred femtoseconds, and 2 capable of changing small displacements. The photoresist defect correcting apparatus is implemented, comprising a photoresist removing apparatus for removing an unwanted pattern of the photoresist by using an apparatus capable of changing an optical path of a laser using a nano position shift device of an axis.

In order to achieve the object of the present invention, the present invention includes a coating apparatus for applying photoresist and a photoresist removing apparatus for removing misapplied photoresist. The photoresist coating apparatus includes a fixed-quantity dispensing apparatus having a micro nozzle for applying a photoresist, and the fixed-quantity discharging apparatus has a heat discharging apparatus for discharging a certain amount of fluid through the micro nozzle and a stop of the discharging and excess fluid It is comprised as a cooling apparatus for a feedback apparatus for absorbing the light, and consists of a laser apparatus for exposing the apply | coated photoresist, and a laser apparatus for hardening the exposed photoresist. The photoresist removal device consists of a high power, fine pulse laser and a biaxial nano displacement device for randomly projecting the laser beam within a certain area, and the energy density of the laser light is constant within the range of the micro scale by an external control signal. Investigate. Although the photoresist to be removed is removed by the photoresist removing device, the thin film existing in the lower portion of the lower portion of the photoresist is absorbed and sublimed by the upper photoresist despite being irradiated with strong laser energy for an extremely small time. The thin film present in can be maintained without thermal and physical damage.

The technique of the present invention is to first remove the photolithography defects in the etching process by applying a photoresist to a device that removes without damaging the underlying film of the defective photolithography pattern such as film residue and a defective position where the pattern is not normally generated. Defects can be prevented in advance.

This method minimizes the defect rate in subsequent processes and eliminates defects in the process before the occurrence of defects, compared to the method of correcting defects after defects occur after a known etching process. It is possible to improve the reliability of the product because no circuit pattern is induced. This method has a very important meaning in the characteristics of the original flat panel display device. A flat panel display element is an apparatus for displaying an image by converting an electrical signal into an optical signal, and it is impossible to completely remove a defect or replace a circuit as an extra circuit. Therefore, the defect correction method of the flat panel display device corrects defects by completely correcting defects when possible or by lowering the degree of defects when the complete defect correction is impossible. This means that if the cause of the defect can be eliminated, the possible defect can be corrected completely (circularly). The object of the present invention is to improve the reliability and shorten the process of the product by eliminating defects of the flat panel display element which are very difficult to fix the defects and sometimes difficult to completely correct the defects in the generation process and even the potential defects. It is characterized by.

1 is a flow chart of the defect correction according to the present invention.

2 is an overall process flow chart according to the present invention.

3 is an overall process flow chart according to the prior art.

4 is a block diagram showing a laser defect correction apparatus according to the prior art 1 (laser cutter apparatus).

Fig. 5 is a block diagram showing a laser defect correction apparatus according to the prior art 2 (laser CD device).

6 is a fluid applicator according to the present invention.

7 is a photoresist removing apparatus according to the present invention.

8 is a structural example of a device according to the present invention.

9 is a block diagram of an apparatus according to the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols for main parts of drawing>

1

2

3

[Figure 4]

1. Objective lens 2. Intermediate optical system

3. Focusing device 4. Light path adjuster

5. laser light source

5

1. Gas window 2. Coating gas piping

3. Objective lens 4. Intermediate optical system

5. Air curtain gas piping 6. Focusing device

7. Light path adjuster 8. Laser light source

6

1. Fluid application nozzle 2. Quantitative discharge / recovery device

3. Fluid storage tank 4. Return device control signal

5. Common control signal 6. Discharge device control signal

7

1. Objective lens 2. Two-axis swing device

3. Medium optics 4. Focusing device

5. Light path regulator 6. Laser light source

8

1. Coating device 2. Optical system

3. Laser for removing photoresist 4. Laser for exposure

5. Laser for hardening 6. Working board

7. Stage

Hereinafter, described in detail by the accompanying drawings as follows.

1 is a flowchart of defect correction according to the present invention. The known technique uses a method of making defects generated after the etching process into a normal circuit or reducing the minimum defects. In contrast, the present invention normalizes the photoresist pattern in question after the development process of the photolithography process, which is a process before the circuit pattern is formed by etching, thereby forming a circuit free of defects in the etching process, which is the next process. Let's do it. This method is accomplished by a photoresist application device and a photoresist removal device. If disconnection occurs on the circuit pattern, the photoresist is applied, the photoresist is exposed and then cured to complete the microregion photolithography process, thereby eliminating the disconnection defect of the photoresist. If an electrical short circuit occurs in the circuit due to a short circuit or photoresist residue, the object of the present invention is achieved by removing only the photoresist without changing the physical properties of the lower thin film by a method of locally removing the photoresist pattern. Such a method is a method for correcting a problem on a circuit pattern in which the prior art is formed, whereas the technique according to the present invention is a technique for preventing the occurrence of a defect in a defect generation process.

2 and 3 show a process flow and a conventional process flow according to the present invention. As shown in Figure 2, after the photolithography process using the defect correction apparatus disclosed in the present invention, a defect correction process was added in the inspection and defect correction process. After the etching process, the defect correction process shown in FIG. 3 was deleted. The essential difference between FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 shows the difference of the essential process of forming a circuit pattern before correcting a defect before fabricating a circuit to be produced in production or correcting a defect after the circuit is formed.

4 and 5 show a defect correction apparatus using a laser according to the prior art. 4 shows a laser cutter commonly used. The laser cutter enlarges the circuit to be inspected or corrects the defect to an appropriate magnification required by the objective lens 1, focuses the defect by the focus adjusting device 3, and then corrects the defect by the optical path controller 4. By adjusting the size of the laser beam and the intensity of the light beam to match the size, high energy applied to the defect through the emission of the laser light source 5 is applied, and the defect to be removed is vaporized and removed. In this process, the lower layer is accompanied by thermal physical modification by the strong laser light energy, the photoresist removing apparatus according to the present invention uses a technique for avoiding such thermal denaturation. In the prior art, the wavelength of the laser light to be used is a laser device having a laser emission pulse of several nanoseconds in order to use 1064 nanometer wavelength in the infrared region in order to use the thermal effect and to irradiate proper energy. However, because of this density of energy, high energy is projected over a relatively long time.

In contrast, in the case of the photoresist removing apparatus according to the present invention shown in FIG. 7, the energy of the laser light is evenly distributed using the biaxial oscillation displacement device 2, and in the case of the laser light, the pulse width of the tens of femtoseconds is relatively small. By irradiating strong energy for a very small time, such as picoseconds, the desired photoresist is removed by laser light, and the underlying film is provided with a device capable of minimizing thermal denaturation. Such a device can control the depth of energy applied to the photoresist by firstly using a laser having a small pulse width and secondly by more uniformly distributing the laser beam by using a biaxial oscillation displacement device. This control method delivers extremely low energy to the lower thin film and concentrates most of the energy on the photoresist existing on the upper portion of the thin film without causing thermal and physical modifications to the lower thin film. An apparatus for removing only photoresist is provided.

One example of the prior art shown in FIG. 5 mainly shows a method for correcting defects of disconnection failure. This apparatus is a device that corrects disconnection defects by depositing a thin film on conductive wiring defects using a sublimable gas. The conductive deposition apparatus supplies a metallic deposition gas such as chromium to the gas source window 1 using the coating gas pipe 2, and circulates the inert gas through the air curtain pipe 5 to supply the metallic deposition gas. Increasing the density of the reaction gas in the lower portion of the gas source window (1) and prevents gas leakage to the outside air. In this state, the density of the reactive gas is increased, and the laser light source 8 mounted on the substrate is irradiated onto the substrate to cause a photochemical reaction to deposit a metal laser (CVD) device. Such a device for correcting disconnection defects provides a very useful method for correcting defects. However, since the flat panel display becomes colored at the circuit position, there are many limitations in defect correction. In other words, if there is an insulator on the wiring, the conductive wiring may be deposited on the insulator, but defect correction may not be possible when another conductor is present. Another constraint is that the thin film deposited by physical distortion on the substrate may be peeled off depending on the shape of the deposition, and the circuit may be rendered useless. In addition, the gas window 1 used to use the toxic gas maintains a very small distance from the substrate, thereby proceeding with an unstable process. In addition, since the gas piping must be attached to the device, the device also has a complicated structure. In spite of the usefulness of such a device, the above device also has the disadvantage that it is impossible to remove the defect before the occurrence of the limitation and the limitation of defect correction of the conductive metal wiring.

In contrast, using the apparatus shown in FIG. 6 disclosed in this patent, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of disconnection defects in the defect generation step, and to perform defect correction regardless of the conductivity, insulation, or semiconductor film after the etching. The apparatus shown in FIG. 6 can quantitatively discharge a small amount of fluid (usually photoresist) onto the substrate via the fluid application nozzle 1 provided at the bottom by the reversible operation of heating and cooling. The operating principle of the device is that the fluid stored in the fluid storage tank 3 is connected to the fluid application nozzle 1 for applying the fluid, and is installed between the fluid storage tank 3 and the fluid application nozzle 1. It has a structure discharged through the fluid application nozzle 1 by a small amount by the metered discharge / recovery device (2). The operating method is that when the operation signal is applied between the common control signal 5 and the discharge device control signal 6 line during the metered discharge, the heating device is operated by the control circuit of the metered discharge / recovery device 2 and the fluid in the heated conduit is heated. The volume expands and the expanded fluid is applied onto the substrate through the fluid application nozzle 1 with low pressure. When the application of the fluid is to be stopped, a recovery control signal is applied between the common control signal 5 and the recovery device control signal 4 connected to the metered discharge / recovery device 2 to control the metered discharge / recovery device 2. The circuit cools the conduit, whereby the fluid in the conduit cools and condenses to stop the application of the fluid.

When the device is interlocked with the precision X-Y stage device, a fluid such as photoresist can be applied in a desired shape. By the above method, a circuit pattern in which defects are removed after etching is obtained. In the case of coating using the actual photoresist, photoresist and curing of the photoresist are required, which will be described in embodiments of the present invention.

Figure 8 shows an embodiment of the device proposed in the patent using the above device. The configuration of the apparatus is a combination of the fluid application apparatus shown in FIG. 6 and the photoresist removing apparatus shown in FIG. 7 and an XY stage capable of moving the substrate, thereby showing a device capable of correcting defects while moving on the substrate. do. Using the optical system 2 in common, the laser device combines the photoresist removing laser 3, the curing laser 5 and the photoresist exposure laser 4 with the same optical path to the optical axis of the optical system 2, A photoresist coating apparatus 1 is installed below the optical system 2, and a stage 7 for moving the work substrate 6 is installed below the entire apparatus to move the stage 7 according to a defect position. It is a device that can correct defects. The device block diagram of this embodiment is shown in FIG.

Application examples of the present patent can be changed depending on the use by various combinations. For example, when used only for the purpose of removing the photoresist, it may be composed of a laser device for removing the photoresist, an optical system, and a stage, and the curing laser and the exposure laser may include a fundamental wave, a first harmonic wave, and a second harmonic generator. It can be configured using one laser. At this time, the laser for exposure should use the laser wavelength that is suitable for the exposure characteristics of the photoresist. For example, a third harmonic generating module is mounted on a 1064 nm Nd: YAG laser to inject one fundamental wave and three frequency into the optical system simultaneously. At the same time, curing and exposure effects can be obtained from the laser light source. As such, the deformation design of the device can be modified or developed as the person skilled in the art will appreciate.

The defect correction apparatus according to the present invention is not limited to a specific flat panel display device, and is basically applicable to the production process of all flat panel display devices using a process of forming a pattern using a photolithography process using a photoresist. Applicable device is made for the method of correcting defects in the same process.

As described above, the present invention comprises a photoresist removing apparatus and a photoresist coating apparatus, and completes the circuit pattern on the substrate to be produced by using the above two apparatuses for the defect of the photoresist pattern found in the photolithography process. By repairing it in the same manner as in the prior art, it is possible to generate a normal circuit without causing distortion of the circuit, such as performing a defect correction after causing a defect, so that the reliability of the product in comparison with the defect correction apparatus after the occurrence of a defect known in the art is known. Eliminating problems such as defects and eliminating problems such as congestion in the subsequent process, it is possible to play a significant role in shortening the air of the product, as well as improving the reliability after shipment of the product and reducing the production cost of the product.

Claims (8)

In the defect correction apparatus of the flat panel display element, And a residual film removing device for removing defects caused by the remaining of the pattern on the substrate, It is provided with the film | membrane coating apparatus which draws the pattern which should exist on a board | substrate, With a control device that can control the two devices organically, The defect correction apparatus of the flat panel display element characterized by eliminating the defect of a flat panel display element. In the residual film removing apparatus of claim 1, Equipped with picosecond laser device, Equipped with a device that can adjust the optical path of the laser to a small displacement, The defect correction apparatus of the flat panel display element characterized by the above-mentioned. In the film applying apparatus of claim 1, Equipped with a device capable of injecting fluid in a fixed amount, A light source device for exposing the spray-coated fluid; Having a light source device for fixing the exposed fluid, The defect correction apparatus of the flat panel display element characterized by the above-mentioned. The apparatus for correcting a defect of a flat panel display device according to claim 1, wherein the pattern of the flat panel display device is a photoresist. The apparatus for correcting defects of flat panel display elements according to claim 1, wherein the film applying apparatus is a fixed-quantity discharging apparatus operating by a reversible reaction of heating / cooling. The apparatus for correcting a defect of a flat panel display device according to claim 1, wherein the flat panel display device is an active matrix LCD. The apparatus for correcting defects of flat panel display elements according to claim 1, wherein the substance to be corrected is photoresist. The defect correcting apparatus for a flat panel display device according to claim 1, wherein the defective flat panel display device is a PDDP.