JPH04111490A - Direct drawer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To see that the drawn pattern does not jut out of the visible outline and shorten the drawing time by putting it in such constitution that the inside of the closed loop outline of the pattern to be drawn is recognized, that the pattern is drawn along the drawing line being offset by a specified amount to the inside of the outline, and that the drawing line jutting out of outline is not drawn. CONSTITUTION:The inside of the outline of a closed loop is recognized by seeking the point being the smallest among the x and y coordinate points of each node of the pattern to be drawn and deciding the treatment direction, and the data being always offset inward by a specified amount are made, and the specified drawing is performed along it. The user can designate the quantity of this offset to reduce it freely, so there is no necessity to change or make up anew the designed pattern itself. Moreover, it follows that it is not turned back but that a long line is drawn, and the drawing time is reduced by reducing the on/off of pneumatic pressure. Furthermore, the offset data and the original data are compared with each other, and if there is one wherein the advance direction of the line is inverted, the line of the original data equivalent to this is deleted.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention is directed to a direct writing device, in particular, to a direct writing device, in particular, a method for discharging paste from a nozzle onto a circuit board placed on a table that moves at a predetermined speed relative to the nozzle. , relates to a direct writing device that draws a pattern on a circuit board.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, such a direct writing device is used to write a
Hybrid IC pattern 45 as illustrated in the figure
When drawing, as shown in FIG. 11, a box-shaped part 46 formed in a closed loop, such as a soldering part, a component mounting part, a pad part on which a resistor pattern will be drawn later, etc. , the line 47 connecting these boxes
It is often composed of.

When drawing such patterns 46 and 47 with a direct drawing device, the line-shaped portion 47 and the box-shaped portion 46
are drawn in different ways. In other words, the line-shaped portion 47 is created by the user inputting the line width of one drawing line and the required line width, and by reciprocating along the line multiple times using the software built into the drawing device. is formed. During this round trip, the input data is offset by a fixed value on the left and right to gradually approach the line width requested by the user (this offset amount can be automatically calculated by the software of the drawing device or manually set by the user). .

On the other hand, a different method is used for the box-shaped portion 46,
These are illustrated in FIGS. 12 and 13. usually,
The data of the pattern to be drawn is sent via communication from the external controller as a group of coordinates of each node of the outline of the pattern.

For example, if the pattern to be formed is a rectangular pattern 50 as shown in FIG.
The periphery is drawn along the outline of the pattern 50 so as to connect the lines a to 50d, and a line 51 is drawn by applying paste. Then, as shown in FIG. 12(C), the inner side 52 is sequentially filled with hatching in the direction and pitch designated by the user to form a rectangular pattern 50. FIG. 13 shows a state in which the inside 52 is filled by discharging the paste 54 from the nozzle 53.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] The normal drawing line 51 has a line width of 100 to 150 u.
m, so when drawing along the outline line 50, the outermost part 51a of the drawing line 51 is the outline line 50.
There is a risk that the line will protrude by about 50 to 75 μm, which is about 1/2 of the line width, resulting in a short circuit with an adjacent line.

If the drawing data to be sent is reduced in order to prevent this, the operation becomes complicated and time consuming.
There is a problem that the management of drawing data becomes complicated.

Furthermore, if the pattern to be drawn becomes a complicated pattern 55 as shown in FIG. The amount of paste must be controlled, and therefore, the control and the time required to turn on and off the air pressure for discharging the paste from the nozzle are required, resulting in the problem that drawing time is required and it is not possible to draw a good pattern.

Therefore, the present invention was made to solve such problems, and there is no contact with adjacent patterns.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a direct drawing device that can shorten drawing time and draw good drawing patterns.

[Means for Solving the Problems 1] In the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, paste is discharged from a nozzle onto a circuit board placed on a table that moves at a predetermined speed relative to the nozzle, In direct writing equipment that draws patterns on circuit boards,
means for identifying the inside of a closed loop contour of a pattern to be drawn; means for calculating a drawing line offset by a predetermined amount inside the contour; and calculating the drawing line offset inside the contour; means for detecting a drawing line that protrudes outside the closed pattern contour, and the pattern is drawn along the drawing line after prohibiting drawing of the drawing line detected by the detection means. , a configuration is adopted in which the inside of the closed loop outline of the pattern to be drawn is identified, and the pattern is drawn along a drawing line that is offset by a predetermined amount inside the outline.

[Function] In such a configuration, the pattern is not drawn using the outline of the pattern to be drawn as its center line (the pattern is drawn offset by a predetermined amount inside the outline).

Moreover, since drawing lines that protrude outside the closed pattern contour are not drawn, for example, even if there is a minute pattern smaller than the offset amount in the closed pattern contour, abnormalities that occur in response to this will not occur. The pattern part can be deleted, allowing high-quality direct drawing.

[Example] The details of the present invention will be described below based on the example shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a direct writing apparatus according to the method of the present invention, and FIG. 2 shows the structure of the control system of the apparatus shown in FIG.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a circuit board made of ceramic or the like, which is positioned at a predetermined position on an XY child table that is moved in the X and Y directions.

A nozzle 3 of an ink pen 4 that discharges a paste 3a forming a conductor and an insulator onto the substrate l is arranged perpendicularly to the XY child table and is moved via a motor 5 in the Z-axis direction perpendicular to the XY plane. be done.

Discharge and stop of discharge of paste 3a from nozzle 3, X
By numerically controlling the movement of the Y child table in the XY plane according to a predetermined program,
Various circuit films can be formed on the circuit board 1.

At this time, the unevenness of the circuit board 1 is detected by a height sensor 6 corresponding to an optical distance sensor, and the height of the nozzle 3 is automatically controlled via a motor 5 along the Z-axis direction.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration including a control unit of this direct drawing device, and 20 is a microcomputer consisting of a CPU, ROM, RAM, etc., and is connected to a CAD system 30 via an input/output device 21, which will be described later. It inputs drawing data including drawing patterns such as the above, temporarily stores the necessary data in the memory 22, and also uses programs and various data stored in the memory 22 in advance to centrally control each part of this direct drawing device. By doing so, a thick film circuit is formed on the substrate 1 made of ceramic or the like and positioned and mounted on the XY child table.

That is, this microcomputer 20 is a motor controller 23
An XY table control signal corresponding to the drawing data is output to the motor controller 23 to drive and control the motor 24 (actually there are two motors, one for driving in the X direction and the other for driving in the Y direction), and the motor is held in the cylinder. for nozzle 3.

XY so that the board 1 moves relatively while drawing the required trajectory.
Move the child table.

Furthermore, before starting drawing, the height sensor 6 measures the height variation of the entire drawing surface of the substrate 1, and the measurement results are stored in the memory 22 in correspondence with coordinate values.

During drawing, the data is read out and a nozzle position control signal is output to the motor controller 25, which causes the motor controller 25 to drive and control the motor 5, so that the nozzle 3 vertically move the nozzle 3 and the ceramic substrate 1.
Always maintain an appropriate distance between the drawing surface and the drawing surface.

Furthermore, the microcomputer 20 outputs a signal corresponding to the set air pressure to the electro-pneumatic converter 26 to convert the high air pressure from the air source 27 into the set pressure, and controls the solenoid valve 28 to open. Air pressure is supplied to the ink pen, the paste in the ink pen 4 is discharged from the nozzle 3 at a predetermined flow rate, and a thick film circuit is drawn with a set basic line width.

The CAD system 30 is a system that uses a personal computer to create drawing data by inputting data of the outline (generally an outline) of a circuit pattern digitized by a digitizer 40, and in this embodiment, this CAD system is mainly used. The drawing data is created and processed by

Next, the operation of the apparatus configured as described above will be explained according to the flowchart shown in FIG.

A case where the pattern to be drawn by the drawing device is a pattern 60 as shown in FIG. 4 will be described. This pattern 60 has a plurality of nodes PL-P9,
The X coordinate of each node.

The X coordinate is stored continuously in memory 2 as one pattern data.
It is stored in 2. This storage state is illustrated in the form of a table in FIG.

First, in step Sl in FIG. 3, the point with the smallest X coordinate, ie, the leftmost point, is found among a series of closed-loop drawing data to be drawn. In pattern 60 of FIG. 4, P2. P
This applies to points 3, P7, and P8. Step S2
If it is determined that there are multiple leftmost point data in
In step S3, the point with the smallest y coordinate among the plurality of points is set as the starting point, and if there is only one leftmost point data, the process moves to step S4 and the point obtained in step S1 is set as the starting point.

When the starting point is determined in this way, in step S5, the magnitude of the y coordinate of the data before and after the starting point is compared,
Determines whether data processing is performed on data stores stored in memory or in reverse order. That is, as shown in FIG. 6, when Pn is the starting point and the y-coordinate of Pn+l is larger than the y-coordinate of Pn-1 (that is, when Pn is the starting point,
)) Data processing P n, Pn+1, Pn+2
, -P m, PL, P2, Pn-1 (Pm
is the final data), while in the opposite case as shown in FIG. 6(B), data processing Pn, Pn-1, Pn-2, = -P
2, Pi, Pg, -.P n+1.

In this way, find the smallest point among the x and y coordinate points,
Determining the processing direction means recognizing the inside of the closed loop outline.

Next, parallel to the line segment connecting the current processing point and the next processing point (in Fig. 7, the current point is Pi and the next point is Pj+1. The following explanation will be based on this figure), and the drawing line width is The equation of the straight line Ll offset to the right in the direction of progress of the half-width processing is calculated (step S6). Similarly, an equation for straight line history 2 that is parallel to the line segment connecting point P i+1 and point P i +z9 and offset to the right in the direction of progress of the half-width drawing line width process is calculated (step S7).

Next, find the intersection of straight lines Ll and L2 and store it in memory (step S8), and proceed with the process by one step (step S9).
Once the process has completed one cycle (step 5IO), the outer periphery is drawn along the line based on the data offset inward (step 5l1), and the inside is drawn and filled in at a predetermined pitch in a predetermined direction (step 5L2).

In this way, by determining a certain specific point and the data processing direction, the inside of the closed loop pattern can be recognized, and as shown in Figure 8, the data is always offset inward by a constant value, regardless of the shape of the pattern. can be created and a predetermined drawing can be performed along it. Therefore, by specifying this offset amount by the user, the device can freely reduce the size, and there is no need to change or create a new pattern itself, which saves time.
and the hassle of data processing.

Furthermore, by setting the offset amount not only to half the drawing line width but also to an arbitrary value, it is possible to reduce or enlarge the pattern.

Furthermore, when a pattern like the one shown in FIG. 14 is drawn using the conventional method, as mentioned above, the part 55a becomes a collection of short lines, and there is a time delay between the on and off of the air pressure at the beginning and end of the drawing line. Since this is synchronized with the XY table drive, there is a drawback that the drawing time is long.

In contrast, in this embodiment, instead of folding back as in the conventional method, the data is sequentially offset using the method described above, as shown in FIG. When a circuit pattern is formed by drawing a reduced pattern, a long line is drawn, which reduces the number of times air pressure is turned on and off, and the drawing time can be significantly reduced.

In the following, problems that arise when offsetting a drawing pattern will be considered.

Here, consider forming a drawing pattern in which the drawing pattern shown by the solid line in FIG. 15 is offset by an offset amount α. In the case of FIG. 15, a short line segment (L
i+i) exists.

In this way, if there is a short line segment (Li+1), the result after the offset is that the short line segment will protrude from the closed loop, and if you continue drawing in this way, the line Li+1 will protrude, resulting in an unexpected result. I can't get the desired results.

The state of this part is shown enlarged in FIG. The direction shown by the arrow in FIG. 16 is the drawing direction of the line, and the drawing direction of the line (L i+1) obtained by the above-mentioned offset calculation is reversed with respect to the advancing direction of the line L i+1 before offset. I know that there is.

In this way, it can be seen that the abnormal line after the offset can be detected based on the drawing direction obtained by the offset. However, depending on the pattern, it may not be possible to determine simply based on the drawing direction alone.

For example, the lines Li to Li as shown on the left side of FIG.
There is a pattern consisting of +5, Li il1%Li+2,
Li+3. If the length of the line data of Li+4 is smaller than the offset amount α, after the offset calculation,
As shown on the right side of Figure 17, the line after offset is
+1 , Li+2 , , Li+3 , and lL
All i+4 become abnormal lines. Here, the original data L
When examining whether there is a reversal of the direction of travel with the data for i = Li + 5, we find that the lines of Li + 2 and Li + 3 have the opposite directions of travel compared to the original data, but the directions of travel of Li + l and Li + 4 are the same as the original data. It is.

In other words, although Li+1 and Li+4 are abnormal data (lines that jump out of the closed loop), no abnormality can be recognized from the direction of movement.

Therefore, the microcomputer 20 performs the control shown in the flowchart of FIG. 20 in addition to the control shown in FIG. 3 to correct the data.

First, in step S21 of FIG. 20, the procedure of FIG. 3 is executed to create inner offset data.

Next, in step S22, the offset data is compared with the original data to check whether there is any line in which the traveling direction is reversed.

In the example of FIG. 17, the lines Li+2 and Li+3 are reverse lines, but when such reverse lines are detected in step 323, the lines of the original data corresponding to the reversed lines (FIG. 17) are detected in step S24. In this case, delete Li+2, Li+3). this is,
Specifically, as shown on the left side of FIG. 18, this is done by extending the line adjacent to the detected data and finding the intersection.

Next, the process returns to step S21, and the corrected original data is again offset according to the flowchart shown in FIG.

In this way, a correction result as shown on the right side of FIG. 18 is obtained, and further correction is continued by repeating steps 323 and S4.

That is, as is clear from FIG. 18, the two lines Li+1 and Li+4, which were not reversed in FIG. 17, are reversed, so that abnormal data can be detected.

Therefore, steps S3 and S24 are repeated and the original data L
Delete i+l and Li+4 and offset the original data again.

In this way, in step S25, drawing data in which all abnormal and unnecessary lines are deleted as shown in FIG. 19 can be obtained. In other words, even if there is a minute pattern smaller than the offset amount in the outline of the pattern, the abnormal pattern part that occurs accordingly can be deleted, a good drawing pattern can be formed, and based on this, higher quality direct drawing can be performed. It becomes possible.

Further, pattern formation can be performed smoothly and unnecessary drawing is not performed, so that drawing time can be shortened.

Note that the above data correction is also possible in the case of fill-in drawing as explained in FIGS. 12 to 13, and drawing can be performed in a shorter time and uniform drawing is possible.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, in the present invention, a pattern is drawn on the circuit board by discharging paste from the nozzle onto a circuit board placed on a table that moves at a predetermined speed relative to the nozzle. In a direct drawing device that performs drawing, means for identifying the inside of a closed loop contour of a pattern to be drawn, means for calculating a drawing line that is offset by a predetermined amount inside the contour, and drawing that is offset inside the contour. When calculating a line, means for detecting a drawing line that protrudes outside the closed pattern contour line is provided, and the pattern is drawn along the drawing line after prohibiting drawing of the drawing line detected by the detection means. Since we are adopting
identify the inside of the closed-loop contour of the pattern to be drawn,
A configuration is adopted in which a pattern is drawn along a drawing line that is offset by a predetermined amount inside the contour line.

Therefore, by offsetting the drawn pattern, the drawn pattern does not protrude beyond the outline, and contact with adjacent drawn patterns is significantly reduced, making it possible to perform good drawing. Moreover, even if there is a minute pattern smaller than the offset amount in the contour of the closed pattern,
There are excellent effects such as the ability to delete abnormal pattern portions that occur in response to this, form a good drawing pattern, and enable higher quality direct drawing based on this.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the configuration of a direct writing apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the structure of the control system in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart explaining the flow of control. , FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the shape of the pattern to be drawn,
FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the state in which the coordinates of the nodes of the pattern in FIG. is an explanatory diagram showing the process of finding a point offset inward by a predetermined amount from the contour line, Fig. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing the entire offset line, and Fig. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing a pattern along the offset line. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing the pattern of the hybrid IC, and FIG. 11 is the diagram 10
Explanatory diagram showing the basic constituent parts of the pattern in the figure, Part 1
2 (A), (B), and (C) are explanatory diagrams showing a conventional pattern drawing method, FIG. 13 is a perspective view showing a conventional pattern drawing method, and FIG. 14 shows a conventional pattern drawing method. Explanatory diagrams, Figures 15 and 16 are explanatory diagrams showing the problem of offset of the drawing pattern, Figures 17 to 19 are explanatory diagrams showing data correction at the time of offset of the writing pattern,
FIG. 0 is a flowchart showing a data correction procedure at the time of offset of a drawing pattern. 1... Base plate 2--XY table 3...
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Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) In a direct writing device that draws a pattern on a circuit board by discharging paste from a nozzle onto a circuit board placed on a table that moves at a predetermined speed relative to the nozzle, means for identifying the inside of a closed loop contour of the pattern to be drawn; means for calculating a drawing line offset by a predetermined amount inside the contour; and means for calculating a drawing line offset inside the contour by a predetermined amount; A direct drawing device comprising means for detecting a drawing line protruding outside a pattern outline, and drawing the pattern along the drawing line after prohibiting drawing of the drawing line detected by the detection means. .