JPH0445865A - Coating device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the splashing of a recovered coating soln. in an outer cup by covering the upper open surfaces of the inner cup and outer cup with a lid free to open and close and fixing a dust preventive plate below the lid covering the upper surface of the outer cup at a definite distance apart. CONSTITUTION:An outer cup 23 for receiving the drain from an inner cup 22 is arranged outside the inner cup 22 to be rotated by the shaft 21 of a spinner. The lower surfaces of the cups 22 and 23 are closed, the upper surfaces are opened, the open upper surfaces of the cups 22 and 23 are covered with lids 38 and 39, and a dust preventive plate 43 is fixed below the lid 39 covering the upper surface of the cup 23 at a definite distance apart. As a result, the coating soln. transiently recovered in the outer cup is not splashed outside as mist or suspended, fine dust, etc., present between the upper and lower lids are not deposited on the surface of a material W to be treated when the lids are opened and the material is discharged, and a defective product is not produced.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a coating device used in the manufacturing process of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and the like.

(Prior Art) Liquid crystal displays are attracting attention as a display device that can replace cathode ray tubes (CRTs).

A liquid crystal display consists of two sheets of glass (liquid crystal is injected between the two sheets of glass) on which the electrodes and elements that make up the pixels are formed.Then, each pixel is connected to a thin film transistor (TPT) or metal/insulator. The active matrix method, which is driven by elements such as body/metal junction (MIM), is becoming mainstream because it provides a high-quality screen.

The technology for forming the thin film transistor described in "-" on the glass substrate 1- is directly applied to the semiconductor manufacturing technology for forming integrated circuits on the silicon wafer "5".The application of the resist solution is also part of the series of steps. In this process, a glass substrate is placed on a vacuum chuck inside an inner cup, a resist solution is dripped onto the glass substrate, and then the vacuum chuck and inner cup are rotated together by a spinner to generate centrifugal force. The resist J liquid is applied uniformly to the surface of the glass substrate.

Then, a part of the dripped monk's cloth liquid is scattered on the inner wall of the inner cup due to centrifugal force. If this coating liquid is left as it is, it will dry and solidify, forming small pieces that will stick to the surface of the object to be treated.

To prevent this, conventionally a drain pipe is installed on the outer peripheral wall of the inner cup, and excess liquid is drained into the outer cup through the drain pipe.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) As described above, in the conventional coating device, since the non-rotating outer cup is disposed close to the outside of the rotating inner cup, the inner cup and outer cup are separated. A turbulent flow occurs between the two, and the coating liquid collected in the outer cup is sucked outside and becomes suspended in the form of mist, and particles of the floating coating liquid adhere to the surface of the workpiece. This causes spot defects.

Particularly in the manufacture of liquid crystal displays, a large number of transistors (50 or more per square centimeter) are embedded in a glass substrate, so even if one transistor is defective, the entire substrate is defective. become. This is a decisive difference in yield between the manufacture of active matrix type liquid crystal displays and the manufacture of semiconductors such as LSI.

Therefore, the present applicant previously proposed a method of covering the open surfaces of the inner cup and outer cup with a lid to prevent floating particles from falling onto the substrate. By doing this, we were able to significantly reduce the falling of suspended particles, but there was a certain amount of space between the lid that covered the top surface of the inner cup and the lid that covered the top surface of the outer cup, and within this space, turbulence flowed. This causes fine dust to escape, and this dust may fall onto the board when the lid is opened.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the problem 1, the present invention provides a coating device in which an outer cup receiving a train from the inner cup is disposed outside an inner cup rotated by a spinner. The - side and the top surface of the outer cup are each covered with a lid body which can be opened and closed, and a dustproof plate is installed at a constant interval on the bottom surface of the lid body which covers the top surface of the outer cup.

(Function) Set a plate-shaped workpiece such as a glass substrate on the vacuum chuck in the inner cup, drop the coating liquid onto the surface of this plate-like workpiece, and then inner cup L, surface, and outer cup] - The vacuum chuck and the inner cup are rotated together with the surface closed with the lid to uniformly spread the cloth liquid dropped onto the surface of the plate-shaped object.

(Example) Examples of the present invention will be described below based on the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 is a plan view of a film forming line incorporating a coating device according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the coating device with its lid lifted off, and Fig. 3 is a top view of the coating device with its lid removed. This is a cross-sectional view in a closed state, and the film forming line is provided with one input part 1 for a plate-shaped workpiece W such as a glass substrate in the second flow part (the left end in FIG. 1), and the downstream side of this input part 1. The coating device 2 according to the present invention is arranged at the downstream side of the cloth device 2, and the vacuum drying device 3, the back side cleaning device 4 for the workpiece W, and the conveyance device from the hot fret section 1 to the heating section 5 are installed in sequence. A device 6 transports the workpiece W with the lower surface of the front and rear ends supported, and in the heating section 5, the workpiece W is transported with the lower surface of the workpiece W supported by a transport device 7 that makes a crank movement in a vertical plane. The workpiece W is transported while sequentially transferring the plays 1-5aJ=.

Next, details of the coating device 2 will be explained based on FIGS. 2 and 3.

The coating device 2 has an outer cup 23 fixedly installed on the outside of an inner cup 22 that is reached by a foot 21 of the spinner device. The inner cup 22 and the outer cup 23 have their lower surfaces closed and their upper surfaces open.
A vacuum chuck 24 for suctioning and fixing the workpiece W is provided at the center of the inner cup 22, and a drain pipe 25 is provided at the lower part of the side wall of the inner cup 22. Further, a drain recovery ring 26 is arranged inside the outer cup 23. This drain recovery ring 26 has an inner wall lower than an outer wall so as to expose the tip of the drain pipe 25, and a bottom wall inclined to one side, with a drain recovery pipe 27 set aside at the lowest position. Further, an exhaust port 28 is formed in the closed lower surface of the outer cup 23.

On the other hand, arms 29 and 30 are arranged above the inner cup 22 and the outer cup 23, as shown in FIG. These arms 29 and 30 are capable of linear movement, rotational movement, double movement, or a combination of these movements, and are designed not to interfere with each other.

A nozzle for dropping a coating liquid such as a resist liquid is installed on the arm 29, and a shaft 31 extending downward is installed at the tip of the arm 30.
2 is bored, and this nozzle hole 32 is connected to a source of pressurized air such as nitrogen gas via a joint 33 and a hose 34 passing through the arm 30.

Further, the shaft 31 includes a bearing 35 and a magnetic seal 3.
A boss portion 37 is rotatably fitted through the inner cup 6, and a disk-shaped aluminum lid 38 for closing the upper opening of the inner cup 22 is attached to the boss portion 37. Further, a lid 39 for closing the front opening of the outer cup 23 is fixed to the lower surface of the tip of the arm 30 above the lid 38.

A rectifying plate 4 is attached to the bottom surface of the lid body 38 by screws 40.
I got 1. The outer diameter of the current plate 41 is slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the inner cup 22, and the nostle hole 32 opens in a space formed between the lower surface of the lid 38 and the upper surface of the current plate 41.

Further, a dustproof plate 43 is provided on the lower surface of the lid body 39 for closing the upper surface opening of the outer cup 23 with a spacer 42 interposed therebetween at a constant interval.

This dustproof plate 43 has a gap 4 between it and the outer peripheral surface of the boss portion 37.
4, and as the inner cup 22 rotates, the boss portion 3
7 rotates, the dustproof plate 43 is prevented from coming into contact with the boss part 37, and a gap 45 is also formed between the outer end of the dustproof plate 43 and the inner peripheral surface of the skirt part of the lid body 39, so that the dustproof plate 43 and the dustproof plate Fine dust that has entered the space between the plate 43 and the plate 43 is discharged.

In the following, in order to uniformly apply the resist solution to the surface of the workpiece W such as a glass substrate, the upper surfaces of the inner cup 22 and outer cup 23 are opened and the vacuum chuck 24 is opened.
The resist liquid is dripped onto the surface of the workpiece W fixed above from the nozzle carried by the arm 29, and then the arm 29 is moved back to separate the inner cup 22 and the outer cup as shown in FIG. The arm 30 is rotated over 23 to expose the lids 38 and 39. Then, as shown in FIG. 3, by lowering the arm 30, the lid 38 closes the "-" side of the inner cup 22, and the lid 39 closes the upper opening of the outer cup 23, and then a spinner is used to vacuum the inner cup 22. The chuck and the inner cup 22 are rotated together, and the resist liquid is uniformly spread and coated on the surface of the object W by centrifugal force.

In the above processing, the inside of the inner cup 22 is in a reduced pressure state, so in order to take out the object W to be processed evenly coated with the resist liquid, the lid body 38 and the rectifying plate must first be removed through the nozzle hole 32. This is done by introducing nitrogen gas or the like into the space between 41 and releasing the reduced pressure state. At this time, since the gas from the nozzle hole 32 is provided with the rectifying plate 41, the gas is not directly blown onto the resist liquid on the surface of the object W to be processed.

In the embodiment, the lid 39 that closes the opening L1 of the outer cup is attached to the lower surface of the tip of the arm 30, but it may be attached to a portion other than the arm 30.

(Effects) As explained in Section 2 below, according to the present invention, when rotating the inner cup with the top openings of the inner cup and outer cup of the coating device being closed with the lid,
A dust-proof plate is installed on the bottom of the lid that closes the top opening of the outer cup, which prevents the coating liquid once collected inside the outer cup from turning into a mist and scattering and floating outside. In addition, when opening the lid and taking out the object to be processed after coating, it prevents fine dust present between the upper and lower lids from adhering to the surface of the object and resulting in a defective product, increasing yield. significantly.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a plan view of a film forming line incorporating the coating device according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the coating device with the lid removed, and Fig. 3 is the lid of the same fabric device. It is a sectional view of the closed state. In the drawing, 1 is a film forming line, 2 is a coating device, 22 is an inner cup, 23 is an outer cup, 32 is a nozzle hole, 38, 39 is a lid body, 41 is a rectifier plate, 43 is a dustproof plate,
W is a plate-shaped object to be processed. Patent Applications Same Attorneys Same Patent Attorneys Same Patent Attorneys Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd. Tatsumo Co., Ltd. 1) Yoshibetsu Ohashi Kunihiko Koyama Yu

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a coating device in which an outer cup for receiving drain from the inner cup is arranged outside an inner cup rotated by a spinner, the inner cup and the outer cup close the lower surface and open the upper surface, and the inner cup and the outer cup are opened. The coating device is characterized in that the top surface of the outer cup is covered with a lid body that can be opened and closed, and dustproof plates are attached at regular intervals to the bottom surface of the lid body that covers the top surface of the outer cup.