Display Mask With Offset Alignment Marks For Precision
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current mask technologies for manufacturing display devices face challenges in productivity and alignment accuracy, particularly in forming complex emission patterns for organic light-emitting diodes, leading to defects and reduced manufacturing efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A mask design featuring a body with multiple cell areas, alignment marks, and a welding part, where alignment marks are strategically positioned to facilitate precise alignment and exposure processes, allowing for the formation of diverse hole shapes and patterns in a single mask, enhancing alignment accuracy and productivity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If a conventional mask design is used for forming emission patterns, then the mask structure is simple, but the alignment accuracy deteriorates and productivity is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The mask body is divided into multiple cell areas (first cell areas and second cell areas), each containing multiple holes. This segmentation allows independent optimization of each cell area while maintaining overall mask functionality, improving alignment accuracy without excessive complexity
Solution Approach 2:
Alignment marks are introduced as a new dimensional element on the mask body, positioned to overlap cell areas when viewed from the exposure direction. These marks provide an additional reference dimension for alignment, enhancing positioning precision without fundamentally redesigning the hole structure
2Productivity
If multiple exposure processes are performed separately for different areas, then alignment accuracy may be maintained, but the manufacturing time and productivity deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple cell areas (first and second cell areas) are combined into a single mask body that can be exposed in one process. The alignment marks enable this combined exposure to maintain the same alignment accuracy as separate processes would provide, while significantly improving productivity by eliminating multiple exposure steps
Solution Approach 2:
Alignment marks serve as intermediary reference elements that facilitate accurate alignment between different cell areas during a single exposure process. These marks act as mediators that ensure the precision normally achieved through multiple separate exposures is maintained while enabling consolidated manufacturing
3Manufacturing precision
If alignment marks are positioned to overlap cell areas, then alignment accuracy is improved, but the defect rate may increase due to potential interference
Solution Approach 1:
The mask design implements local quality by having alignment marks with specific structural characteristics (such as being offset from hole centers and having specific shapes) that are optimized for their alignment function while minimizing interference with the emission pattern formation in the cell areas. This localized optimization reduces defect rates while maintaining alignment accuracy
Data Source
AI summary
A mask includes: a body having a length in a first direction and including: a plurality of first cell areas arranged in the first direction and respectively including a plurality of first holes; and a plurality of second cell areas respectively including a plurality of second holes; and a clamping part protruding from the body in the first direction and being integral with the body. An alignment mark is defined on the body and is offset from the first holes and the second holes, and the alignment mark overlaps the first and second cell areas when viewed in a second direction crossing the first direction.