Revolutionary coating system

The newly released  “ultrasonic proximity-drying coating system” employs a contact-free glass substrate transfer method which improves yields by eliminating mura in the coating process of glass substrates. It has also accomplished reductions in both cycle time and running cost by rendering vacuum equipment and transfer robots unnecessary.

In this newly developed “ultrasonic proximity-drying coating system”, the glass substrate is transferred contact-free from the cleaning unit to the exposure unit in the photolithographic process of manufacturing LCDs. Even robots are unnecessary, making this a revolutionary system for coating, drying, and pre-baking procedures.

The contact-free glass substrate transfer method employed improves yields by eliminating mura, while simultaneously reducing cycle time (by 5 seconds using a 8.5th generation sheet, compared with traditional methods) by eliminating the need for vacuum equipment and transfer robots. This has enabled us to achieve the world’s top rank in cycle time.

With conventional glass substrate transport methods, it is necessary to grip the surface of the glass, causing quality issues at the robot hand's contact point known as drying mura and transfer mura. The “ultrasonic proximity-drying coating system” developed solves the quality problems caused by gripping the glass by completely floating the glass being processed. Simultaneously, defects caused by particles have been drastically reduced since it has eliminated the need to use mechanisms which cause them, such as vacuum equipment and transfer robots.

Eliminates additional costs of vacuum equipment and transfer robots

Supplementary equipment such as vacuum equipment and transfer robots are not required, which reduces the initial cost outlay, operating costs and maintenance costs, as well as reducing the amount of space required.

The “ultrasonic proximity-drying coating system” is capable of handling 10th generation super-sized glass substrates as well as ultra-thin 0.3mm glass substrates, which have been problematic with conventional transport methods. Although the optimum use of this system is for LCD applications such as photo resist coating/baking on thin film transistors (TFT) or color resist coating/baking on color filters (CF), the company anticipates that it will be embraced for a broad range of sheet applications outside of the LCD segment (for example, organic electroluminescence or solar cells).

The continuous process of cleaning, coating, drying, exposure, and baking can be examined on the company’s 5th generation-size evaluation equipment at Seta Factory.