JPH0763668B2 - Coating device - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a coating device used in a manufacturing process of a liquid crystal display (LCD) or the like.

(Prior Art) A liquid crystal display is receiving attention as a display device that replaces a cathode ray tube (CRT).

A liquid crystal display has a structure in which liquid crystal is injected between two glass substrates having electrodes and elements forming pixels on the surface. And each pixel is a thin film transistor (TFT)
Active matrix systems that can be driven by elements such as metal and insulator / metal junction (MIM) are becoming mainstream because they can provide high-quality images.

The technique for forming the thin film transistor on the glass substrate is directly applied to the semiconductor manufacturing technique for forming an integrated circuit on a silicon wafer or the like. Applying the resist solution is also one of a series of steps. In this step, the glass substrate is set in the cup, the resist solution is dropped on the glass substrate, and then the cup is rotated and centrifugal force is applied to the surface of the glass substrate. The resist solution is evenly applied to.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In the application of the resist solution described above, when the cup is rotated, the upper surface of the cup is closed with a lid to prevent the resist solution from scattering outside the cup. Further, a drain pipe is attached to the lower side wall of the cup so that the resist solution adhering to the side wall of the cup is discharged to the outside of the cup during rotation.

As described above, when the drain pipe is attached to the side wall of the cup, air or gas in the cup is discharged through the drain pipe due to the centrifugal force caused by the rotation, and the inside of the cup is in a reduced pressure state. Then, when application of the resist solution is completed and the glass substrate is taken out from the cup by removing the lid under reduced pressure,
Since the inside is depressurized, air suddenly flows into the cup,
There is a disadvantage that fine powder of the resist that is dried and solidified adheres to the surface of the glass substrate. It is possible to attach a glass introduction nozzle to the lid to eliminate this, but when the nozzle faces the cup, a turbulent flow is generated by this nozzle and the gas ejected from the nozzle causes the resist liquid applied on the glass substrate to flow. The thickness will be partially different.

Especially in the manufacture of liquid crystal displays, many transistors are embedded on the glass substrate (50 per square centimeter).
Even if one of the transistors is defective, the entire substrate is defective. This is the manufacturing of active matrix liquid crystal displays and LS
It is a decisive difference in the yield from the manufacturing of semiconductors such as I.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above problems, the present invention relates to a plate-like object to be processed which is set in the cup (23) by communicating the inside and the outside of the cup (23) with a drain hole (25). The coating liquid was dropped on the surface of (W), and then the upper surface of the cup (23) was closed with a lid (28) and the cup (23) was rotated to be dropped on the surface of the plate-shaped object (W). In a coating device configured to evenly diffuse a coating liquid, a rectifying plate (36) having a size to be inserted into the cup (23) is attached to the lower surface of the lid (28) at a predetermined interval, and the rectifying plate (36 ) And the lid (28), the gas introduction nozzle (33) is opened.

(Function) By setting a plate-shaped object to be processed such as a glass substrate in the cup, dropping the coating liquid on the surface of the plate-shaped object, then closing the upper surface of the cup with a lid and rotating the cup. After uniformly spreading the coating liquid dropped on the surface of the plate-shaped object,
Gas is introduced into the cup from a gas introduction nozzle attached to the lid to release the depressurized state in the cup, and then the lid is opened to take out the object to be treated.

(Example) Below, the Example of this invention is described based on an accompanying drawing.

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a coating film forming line incorporating the coating apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the coating apparatus with its lid raised, and FIG. 3 shows the lid of the coating apparatus closed. FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the state in which the film forming line is provided with a charging part 1 for a plate-shaped object W such as a glass substrate at the most upstream part (left end in FIG. 1), and the present invention is provided downstream of the charging part 1. Coating device 2
Are arranged in this order on the downstream side of the coating device 2, and the reduced-pressure drying device 3, the back surface cleaning device 4 for the workpiece W, and the hot plate are sequentially installed.
The heating unit 5 including 5a ... is disposed, and the charging unit 1 to the heating unit 5 are arranged.
Up to the above, the lower surface of the front and rear ends of the object to be processed W is carried by the carrying device 6, and the lower surface of the object to be processed W is supported by the carrying device 7 that cranks in the vertical plane in the heating section 5. In this state, the workpiece W is transported while being sequentially transferred on each hot plate 5a.

Next, details of the coating device 2 will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

The coating device 2 has an inner cup 23 attached to a shaft 22 of a spinner device inside an outer cup 21. The inner cup 23 is provided with a vacuum chuck 24 having an open upper surface and adsorbing and fixing the object W to be processed in the central portion, and further, a drain pipe 25 is attached to a lower portion of a side wall of the inner cup 23.

On the other hand, arms 26 and 27 are arranged above the outer cup 21 and the inner cup 23 as shown in FIG. These arms 26, 27 are capable of linear movement, rotation movement, vertical movement, or a combination of these movements so that they do not interfere with each other. A nozzle for dropping a coating liquid such as a resist liquid is attached to the arm 26, and a lid 28 is attached to the arm 27.

The lid 28 has a shaft 29 extending downward from the tip of the arm 27, and a boss portion 32 rotatably fitted to the shaft 29 via a bearing 30 and a magnetic seal 31. The disc-shaped aluminum lid body is fitted to the boss portion 32. 28 is attached.

A nozzle hole 33 is formed in the shaft 29, and the nozzle hole 33 is formed.
33 is connected to a pressure source such as nitrogen gas through a joint 34.

On the other hand, a current plate 36 is attached to the lower surface of the lid 28 with screws 35. It is preferable to use a metal plate such as aluminum because plastic is apt to be charged with static electricity and dust is attached to the rectifying plate 36, which is not preferable. In addition, the straightening plate 36
The outer diameter of the inner cup 23 is slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the inner cup 23, and the nozzle hole 33 is opened in the space formed between the lower surface of the lid 28 and the upper surface of the current plate 36.

In the above, in order to uniformly apply the resist solution to the surface of the object W to be processed such as a glass substrate, the object W to be processed fixed on the vacuum chuck 24 with the upper surface of the inner cup 23 open.
The resist solution is dripped on the surface of the nozzle from the nozzle attached to the arm 26, and then the arm 26 is retracted to rotate the arm 27 on the inner cup 23 to expose the lid 28 as shown in FIG. . Then, as shown in FIG. 3, when the upper surface of the inner cup 23 is closed by lowering the arm 27 by the lid 28, the inner cup 23 is rotated by a spinner and the resist solution is applied to the object W by centrifugal force. Spread evenly on the surface of.

In the above process, the inner cup 23 is in a depressurized state, and therefore, in order to take out the object W to which the resist solution is uniformly applied, first, the lid 28 and the current plate 36 are inserted through the nozzle holes 33. Nitrogen gas or the like is introduced into the space between.
Then, the introduced gas passes through the gap between the straightening plate 26 and the inner cup 23 and spreads inside the inner cup, and the depressurized state is released. At this time, the gas from the nozzle holes 33 is not directly sprayed on the resist liquid on the surface of the object to be processed W because of the flow regulating plate 36.

(Effect) As described above, according to the present invention, the gas introducing nozzle is attached to the lid that closes the cup upper surface of the coating device, and the straightening plate is provided on the lower surface of the lid so as to be located below the gas introducing nozzle. Since the turbulent flow is unlikely to occur in the cup when the cup is rotated, and when the gas is introduced into the cup after the completion of coating, the introduced gas does not adversely affect the applied liquid.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a coating film forming line incorporating the coating apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the coating apparatus with its lid raised, and FIG. 3 shows the lid of the coating apparatus closed. It is a sectional view of the state where it was opened. In the drawing, 1 is a loading portion of the plate-like object to be treated, 2 is a coating device,
21 is an outer cup, 23 is an inner cup, 28 is a lid,
33 is a nozzle hole, 36 is a straightening plate, and W is a plate-shaped object to be processed.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Reference number within the agency FI Technical indication location H01L 21/027 (72) Inventor Michio Hashimoto 646 Yoshii-cho, Goizuki-gun, Okayama Prefecture 646 (72) Inventor Kazushi Kawakami 2397-1 Higashisanari, Yakage Town, Oda District, Okayama Prefecture

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A drain hole (2) is provided inside and outside the cup (23).
5), the coating liquid is dropped on the surface of the plate-shaped object (W) set in the cup (23), and then the cup (23)
In the coating apparatus, the upper surface of which is closed by a lid (28) and the cup (23) is rotated to uniformly diffuse the coating liquid dropped on the surface of the plate-shaped object (W). A rectifying plate (36) having a size that fits into the cup (23) is attached to the lower surface of the (28) so as to be separated by a predetermined distance.
Gas introduction nozzle (33) in the space between the lid and the lid (28)
The coating device is characterized in that it is opened.