Substrate Cleaning Apparatus Spacing Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing substrate cleaning processes for display devices, such as organic light-emitting display devices, face challenges in achieving stable and efficient cleaning while maintaining high throughput, often resulting in overlapping substrates during the cleaning process which can lead to incomplete cleaning.
Innovation Solution
A substrate cleaning apparatus and method that includes an input unit for receiving substrates spaced at a predetermined interval, a cleaning unit for cleaning the substrates, and an output unit with an alignment unit that realigns substrates to maintain the interval, utilizing transfer rollers driven by a servo motor and elevating units to manage substrate flow, ensuring proper spacing and preventing overlap.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If substrates are cleaned one by one in sequence, then cleaning quality is stable, but cleaning time is long and throughput is low
Solution Approach 1:
The cleaning apparatus is divided into multiple cleaning units (first cleaning unit, second cleaning unit, third cleaning unit) that can simultaneously clean multiple substrates. Each cleaning unit is independently controlled, allowing parallel processing of multiple substrates while maintaining consistent cleaning quality in each unit, thereby resolving the contradiction between stable cleaning quality and high throughput
Solution Approach 2:
Transfer rollers and alignment units act as intermediaries to coordinate the movement and positioning of multiple substrates through different cleaning units. These intermediary mechanisms ensure that substrates are properly positioned and transferred between cleaning units, enabling simultaneous cleaning of multiple substrates while maintaining cleaning quality consistency, thus achieving both high throughput and stable cleaning quality
2Productivity
If multiple substrates are cleaned simultaneously, then cleaning throughput is improved, but substrates may overlap causing incomplete cleaning
Solution Approach 1:
The apparatus uses dynamically controllable transfer rollers and alignment units that can adjust their position and movement based on substrate location. This dynamic control ensures that multiple substrates moving through different cleaning units maintain proper spacing and do not overlap, allowing simultaneous cleaning of multiple substrates while guaranteeing complete cleaning of each substrate surface
Solution Approach 2:
Sensors are installed in the input unit, output unit, and cleaning units to detect substrate positions and provide feedback to the control system. This feedback mechanism allows the system to monitor and adjust substrate spacing in real-time, preventing overlap between substrates during simultaneous cleaning while maintaining high throughput, thus resolving the contradiction between cleaning completeness and cleaning throughput
3Speed
If substrates are moved quickly through the cleaning unit, then cleaning speed is improved, but substrate positioning precision deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The transfer rollers are designed with dynamic speed control capabilities, allowing different sections of the transfer path to operate at different speeds. Fast transfer sections move substrates quickly to maintain high throughput, while precision positioning sections slow down to ensure accurate spacing and alignment. This dynamic speed variation allows the system to achieve both high substrate transfer speed and precise substrate spacing precision simultaneously
Data Source
AI summary
A substrate cleaning method includes: sequentially loading each of a plurality of substrates, one substrate substantially immediately after a preceding substrate, into an input unit, in which adjacent substrates of the plurality of substrates are spaced apart from each other by a predetermined first interval; sequentially transferring each of the plurality of substrates in which adjacent substrates of the plurality of substrates are separated by a predetermined second interval that is greater than the predetermined first interval; cleaning each of the plurality of substrates in a cleaning unit; and aligning, in an output unit, adjacent substrates to be separated by the predetermined first interval.