LARGE AREA

ELECTRONICS
TECHNOLOGY
&
APPLICATIONS

APPLICATIONS
Solar Cells

Flat Panel Displays

LEDs
Sensors
Organic/Flexible Electronics

TOPICS
Liquid Crystals
Flat Panel Display Structure
Manufacturing Process/Technology
and Equipment

LIQUID CRYSTALS
History

The 4th State of the Matter

Liquid
Crystals may
flow like a
liquid and may
crystallize like
a solid

MELTING POINTS
145C
178C

Liquid Crystal
Liquid

LIQUID CRYSTALS
RCA laboratories 1962: Physical Chemist
Richard Williams when applied an electric
field to a nematic liquid crystal at 125 C
observed the formation of a regular pattern.
Nematic liquid crystal
state above 116 C.
Impractical in
commercial display
product.

LIQUID CRYSTALS
RCA laboratories 1966: research chemists J. E.
Goldmacher and J. A. Castillano discovered
mixtures of nematic compounds with RT
nematic Liquid Crystal behaviour.
Nematic liquid crystal
state in the range of
22-105 C.
Suitable in
commercial display
product.

THE STRUCTURE OF A FPD/TFT-LCD

The Nematic LCD becomes Twisted Nematic (helical

structure) when electrodes are coated with an
alignment layer
V=0
the Image becomes TRANSPARENT
V0
the Image becomes OPAQUE

THE STRUCTURE OF A FPD/TFT-LCD

Extra coating: between ITO layers and Alignment layers (hard coating)
Purpose: electrical insulation of the surface
Material: SiOx
Spacers: keep the glass plates in a fixed distance
TFTs: a-Si (pc-Si: better perfomance but requires higher deposition T)

MANUFACTURING PROCESS
High precision process/Over 300 individual steps
Class-10 cleanliness/Less than 10 particles per cubic feet

THE FINAL STRUCTURE

Liquid Crystal is filled between two glass substrates:

TFT-array glass
Color-Filter glass

THE 3 SUB PROCESSES

1. THE ARRAY PROCESS

TFT production in the rear glass

Color Filter Application in the front glass

TFT PRODUCTION
THE DESIRED STRUCTURE

TFT PRODUCTION

A total of 6 layers x 8 processes = 48 processes is required

Between developing and etching a baking process also exists

COLOR FILTER APPLICATION

A total of 4 layers x 5 processes = 20 processes is required

The baking process is indispensable because a different
mask is employed in the next exposure process
The pixels are of different height/an extra layer is coated

2. THE CELL PROCESS

2. THE CELL PROCESS

3. THE MODULE PROCESS

EQUIPMENT FOR MANUFACTURERS

Applied Materials

Nikon/Canon

Tokyo Electron

Hitachi/Hitachi Hi-Tech

Jusung Engineering

Joyo Engineering

PROCESS

COMPANY

G-SIZE

PECVD

APPLIED MATERIALS

1-8.5

SPUTTERING

APPLIED MATERIALS

5-8.5

TFT-INSPECTION

APPLIED MATERIALS

2-8.5

RESIST COATER/DEVELOPER TOKYO ELECTRON

3.5-8.5

PLASMA ETCH/ASH

TOKYO ELECTRON

3.5-8.5

OLED BACKLIGHT

TOKYO ELECTRON

8.5

SEAL DISPENSER

HITACHI

1-8.5

CELL ASSEMBLY/INSPECTION HITACHI

1-8.5

CF APPLICATION
PI PRINTING
TFT/CF PATTERN TRANSFER

HITACHI HI-TECH

2-8

JOYO ENGINEERING

2-7

NIKON

6-8.5