Patent Application
20220098752
The present application claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202022216543.0 filed in China on Sep. 30, 2020, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present disclosure relates to the technical field of electroplating processes, and more particularly, to a debris cleaning device and electroplating system.
In the process of electroplating and other processes, the glass debris accident is inevitable, and the debris should be cleaned after the debris accident, so as to prevent the debris from affecting the quality of subsequent processes. At present, after the debris occurs in the electroplating process, it is necessary to arrange downtime for liquid drainage, manually enter the electroplating tank body for operation, and perform electroplating liquid extraction operation, which increases the operation downtime and the risk of manual operation as well as the introduction risk of particles.
In a first aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a debris cleaning device for cleaning debris generated within process equipment, the debris cleaning device including: a process treatment tank for containing a liquid medicine and a substrate to be treated, wherein a bottom of a tank body of the process treatment tank is provided with a liquid medicine discharge port, and a side wall of the tank body of the process treatment tank is provided with a liquid medicine inlet port; and a self-circulation debris removal system, the self-circulation debris removal system including a circulation pipeline communicating between the liquid medicine discharge port and the liquid medicine inlet port, wherein the circulation pipeline is provided with a control valve for controlling an on-off state of the circulation pipeline, a debris filtering and collecting device for filtering debris in the circulation pipeline, and a power pump for providing a circulation driving force for the liquid medicine in the circulation pipeline.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the bottom of the tank body of the process treatment tank is a first inverted conical cavity for guiding the liquid medicine in the process treatment tank to the liquid medicine discharge port, and a bottom of the first inverted conical cavity is in communication with the liquid medicine discharge port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the control valve includes at least one of a manual valve and a solenoid valve.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the debris filtering and collecting device includes: a debris collector and a filter arranged in sequence from the liquid medicine discharge port to the liquid medicine inlet port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the debris collector includes: a collection box, wherein the collection box is in a shape of a box body, a liquid inlet and a liquid outlet are provided at an upper part of the box body of the collection box, a debris collection cavity for collecting debris is provided at a lower part of the box body of the collection box, the debris collection cavity is a second inverted conical cavity, a debris discharge port for discharging debris is provided at a bottom of the debris collection cavity, and a cover plate capable of opening or closing the debris discharge port is provided at the debris discharge port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the debris collector further includes: a filter, the filter being arranged at the liquid outlet and including at least two layers of filter meshes capable of filtering particles of different sizes.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the side wall of the second inverted conical cavity at a side where the liquid inlet is located is an inclined side wall forming an inclined included angle relative to a horizontal plane, and the side wall of the second inverted conical cavity at a side where the liquid outlet is located is a vertical side wall perpendicular to the horizontal plane.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, at least one side wall of the process treatment tank is a liquid return wall, a plurality of liquid return ports are distributed on the liquid return wall, and a filtering protection device is further provided on the liquid return wall for preventing debris in the process treatment tank from entering the liquid return port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the filtering protection device includes: a frame fixed on the liquid return wall, and a filter mesh fixed on the frame.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, a material of the process treatment tank is transparent; and a material of the collection box is transparent.
In a second aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure also provide an electroplating system including: a debris cleaning device for cleaning debris generated within process equipment, the debris cleaning device including: a process treatment tank for containing a liquid medicine and a substrate to be treated, wherein a bottom of a tank body of the process treatment tank is provided with a liquid medicine discharge port, and a side wall of the tank body of the process treatment tank is provided with a liquid medicine inlet port; and a self-circulation debris removal system, the self-circulation debris removal system including a circulation pipeline communicating between the liquid medicine discharge port and the liquid medicine inlet port, wherein the circulation pipeline is provided with a control valve for controlling an on-off state of the circulation pipeline, a debris filtering and collecting device for filtering debris in the circulation pipeline, and a power pump for providing a circulation driving force for the liquid medicine in the circulation pipeline. Specifically the process treatment tank is an electroplating tank of the electroplating system.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the bottom of the tank body of the process treatment tank is a first inverted conical cavity for guiding the liquid medicine in the process treatment tank to the liquid medicine discharge port, and a bottom of the first inverted conical cavity is in communication with the liquid medicine discharge port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the control valve includes at least one of a manual valve and a solenoid valve.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the debris filtering and collecting device includes: a debris collector and a filter arranged in sequence from the liquid medicine discharge port to the liquid medicine inlet port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the debris collector includes: a collection box, wherein the collection box is in a shape of a box body, a liquid inlet and a liquid outlet are provided at an upper part of the box body of the collection box, a debris collection cavity for collecting debris is provided at a lower part of the box body of the collection box, the debris collection cavity is a second inverted conical cavity, a debris discharge port for discharging debris is provided at a bottom of the debris collection cavity, and a cover plate capable of opening or closing the debris discharge port is provided at the debris discharge port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the debris collector further includes: a filter, the filter being arranged at the liquid outlet and including at least two layers of filter meshes capable of filtering particles of different sizes.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the side wall of the second inverted conical cavity at a side where the liquid inlet is located is an inclined side wall forming an inclined included angle relative to a horizontal plane, and the side wall of the second inverted conical cavity at a side where the liquid outlet is located is a vertical side wall perpendicular to the horizontal plane.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, at least one side wall of the process treatment tank is a liquid return wall, a plurality of liquid return ports are distributed on the liquid return wall, and a filtering protection device is further provided on the liquid return wall for preventing debris in the process treatment tank from entering the liquid return port.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, the filtering protection device includes: a frame fixed on the liquid return wall, and a filter mesh fixed on the frame.
According to one possible embodiment of the present disclosure, a material of the process treatment tank is transparent; and a material of the collection box is transparent.
In order to more clearly explain the embodiments of the present disclosure or the technical solutions in the related art, a brief description will be given below with reference to the accompanying drawings to be used in the description of the embodiments, and it is obvious that the drawings in the description below are only some embodiments of the present disclosure, and other drawings can be obtained from these drawings by a person skilled in the art without involving any inventive effort.
To further clarify the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present disclosure, a more particular description of the technical solutions of the present disclosure will be rendered by reference to the appended drawings. Obviously, the embodiments described in the present disclosure are part of the all embodiments, in which some, but not all embodiments of the disclosure are shown. Based on the embodiments in the present disclosure, all other embodiments obtained by a person skilled in the art are within the protection scope of this disclosure.
In the description of the present disclosure, it should be understood that the orientation or positional relationship indicated by the terms “center”, “upper”, “lower”, “left”, “right”, “vertical”, “horizontal”, “inner”, “outer”, and the like is based on the orientation or positional relationship shown in the drawings, and is merely for convenience of describing the disclosure and simplifying the description, but not intended or implied that the referenced device or element must have a particular orientation, be constructed and operated in a particular orientation, and thus should not be construed as limiting the present disclosure. The terms “first”, “second” and “third” are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.
Before describing in detail the debris cleaning device provided by embodiments of the present disclosure, it is necessary to describe the related art as follows.
In the related art, the electrochemical deposition process is a low-cost chemical film-forming method, and can deposit a metal with a thickness of 2-20 μm, so as to obtain a lower resistance. Currently, products such as a Mini LED backplate and so on, and the manufacture of a nano-imprinting template and the manufacture of a liquid crystal antenna can be realized by the electrochemical deposition method. The deposition of metal thin film with the thickness of 2-20 μm on the glass substrate can reduce the resistance value, reduce the heating phenomenon and significantly improve the service life. At present, there are three ways to deposit metal thin film on glass substrate: sputtering, electroplating and electroless plating. Sputtering thick film costs long time and the efficiency is low, and the horizontal deposition mode of the electroless plating has the risk of inclusion of foreign matter, while electroplating has the advantages of high efficiency, low stress and low risk. In the electroplating process, the glass debris accident is inevitable. It is particularly critical that the debris is cleaned after the debris accident to prevent the impact of the debris on the quality of the subsequent process and that the equipment is protected to prevent the debris from causing downtime or causing damage and impact to pumping of the system, filtration system and pipeline. At present, after the debris occurs in the electroplating process, it is necessary to arrange downtime for liquid drainage, manually enter into the electroplating tank body for operation, and perform electroplating liquid extraction operation, which increases the operation downtime and the risk of manual operation as well as the introduction risk of particles.
As shown in
a process treatment tank 100 for containing a liquid medicine and a substrate 10 to be treated, wherein a bottom of a tank body of the process treatment tank 100 is provided with a liquid medicine discharge port 110, and a side wall of the tank body of the process treatment tank 100 is provided with a liquid medicine inlet port 120; and
a self-circulation debris removal system 200, the self-circulation debris removal system 200 including a circulation pipeline 210 communicating between the liquid medicine discharge port 110 and the liquid medicine inlet port 120, wherein the circulation pipeline 210 is provided with a control valve for controlling an on-off state of the circulation pipeline 210, a debris filtering and collecting device 220 for filtering debris in the circulation pipeline 210, and a power pump 230 for providing a circulation driving force for the liquid medicine in the circulation pipeline 210.
In the debris cleaning device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure, a liquid medicine discharge port 110 is provided at the bottom of a process treatment tank 100, and taking the process treatment tank 100 as an electroplating tank as an example, the liquid medicine discharge port 110 is in communication with a liquid medicine inlet port 120 on the process treatment tank 100 via a pipeline of the self-circulation debris removal system 200. Thus, when substrate debris occurs during electroplating, the debris is deposited at the bottom of the process treatment tank 100 by its own weight, facilitating the next step of discharging the debris out of the process treatment tank 100 through the self-circulation debris removal system 200. The discharged liquid medicine enters the pipeline of the self-circulation debris removal system 200, the control valve controls the opening of the pipeline, and the liquid medicine enters the liquid medicine inlet port 120 of the process treatment tank 100 after passing through the debris filtering and collecting device 220 on the pipeline of the self-circulation debris removal system 200 by the driving force provided by the power pump 230. Specifically, the debris filtering and collecting device 220 filters debris and other impurities to ensure the cleanliness of the liquid medicine in the tank body entering the process treatment tank 100 through the self-circulation debris removal system 200.
It can be seen therefrom that the debris cleaning device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure can achieve the effect of automatically cleaning debris out of the process treatment tank 100 by using the fluid-related principle through the self-circulation debris removal system 200, and does not need to perform electroplating liquid extraction and manual entry into the tank body operation every time when debris occurs, reducing the operation downtime and the risk of manual operation as well as the introduction risk of particles, and enabling electroplating liquid to be recycled, and thus saving costs.
In some exemplary embodiments, the liquid medicine discharge port 110 at the bottom of the tank body of the process treatment tank 100 may have a diameter of 200-500 mm to facilitate the discharge of liquid medicine and debris. In particular, the liquid medicine discharge port 110 at the bottom of the tank body of the process treatment tank 100 may have a diameter of 350 mm to facilitate the discharge of liquid medicine and debris. It is understood, of course, that the size of the liquid medicine discharge port 110 is not limited in practical use.
Furthermore, in some exemplary embodiments, as shown in
With the above-mentioned solution, the bottom of the tank body of the process treatment tank 100 is a first inverted conical cavity 130, and the inner side wall of the first inverted conical cavity 130 is an inclined smooth surface which is inclined with respect to the horizontal plane, so that it is more advantageous that the debris deposits on the liquid medicine discharge port 110 at the bottom of the process treatment tank 100 by its own weight.
It should be noted that the angle of inclination of the inner side wall of the first inverted conical cavity 130, i.e. the angle of inclination of the inner side wall of the first inverted conical cavity 130 with respect to the horizontal plane, may be between 45° and 75°, so that the first inverted conical cavity 130 is less likely to accumulate debris at the corners formed by the first inverted conical cavity 130 and the channel body of the process treatment tank 100 while facilitating debris deposition at the bottom of the channel body. In particular, the angle of inclination of the inner side wall of the first inverted conical cavity 130 may be set at 60°.
In addition, it should be noted that the process treatment tank 100 may be made of transparent materials to facilitate observation of debris within the tank body. For example, the transparent material selected may be glass, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polystyrene (PS), polycarbonate (PC), styrene acrylonitrile (AS and SAN), styrene-methyl methacrylate copolymer (MS), etc.
Further, as shown in
In some exemplary embodiments, as shown in
It will of course be understood that in other embodiments, the control valve may also include only a manual valve 240, or only a solenoid valve 250.
Further, in some exemplary embodiments, as shown in
With the above-mentioned solution, the debris collector 221 is located in front of the filter 222 in the direction from the liquid medicine discharge port 110 to the liquid medicine inlet port 120 (namely, in a counterclockwise direction), thereby facilitating the disassembly between the debris filtering and collecting device 220.
Illustratively, as shown in
With the above-mentioned solution, the collection box 2211 of the debris collector 221 includes a liquid inlet 2212 and a liquid outlet 2213 at the upper part of the box body, and a debris collection cavity 2214 at the lower part of the box body, such that when the liquid medicine enters the collection box 2211 from the liquid inlet 2212, the liquid medicine sinks to the debris collection cavity 2214 by its own weight, and then the liquid medicine is discharged out of the collection box 2211 via the liquid outlet 2213. A cover plate 2215 capable of opening or closing the debris discharge port is provided at the debris discharge port, and when a certain amount of debris is collected, the cover plate is removed and cleaned.
In some embodiments, the cover plate 2215 is provided with a locking mechanism 2216 for opening or closing the cover plate 2215.
Further, in some exemplary embodiments, as shown in
It should be noted that the angle of inclination of the inner side wall of the second inverted conical cavity may be between 45° and 75°, so that the second inverted conical cavity is less likely to accumulate debris at the corners formed by the second inverted conical cavity and the debris collection cavity 2214 while facilitating debris deposition at the bottom of the debris collection cavity 2214. In particular, the angle of inclination of the inner side wall of the second inverted conical cavity may be set at 60°.
Further, in some exemplary embodiments, as shown in
With the above-mentioned solution, the inclined side wall 2217 facilitates debris deposition at the bottom of the debris collection cavity 2214, the filter mesh is provided at the liquid outlet 2213, so that the debris can be blocked by the filter mesh, and the vertical side wall 2218 aids the debris blocked by the filter mesh in smoothly falling to the bottom of the debris collection cavity 2214 for collection, without easily causing debris blocked by the filter mesh to accumulate at the liquid outlet 2213.
Further, in some embodiments, the collection box 2211 is a transparent box to facilitate observation of debris accumulation within the collection box 2211. The collection box 2211 may be made of a transparent material to facilitate observation of debris accumulation within the collection box 2211. For example, the transparent material selected may be glass, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polystyrene (PS), polycarbonate (PC), styrene acrylonitrile (AS and SAN), styrene-methyl methacrylate copolymer (MS), etc.
Furthermore, in the related art, the process treatment tank usually has a liquid return wall, and liquid return ports are distributed on the liquid return wall; when debris occurs, the debris can enter the liquid return system via the liquid return port, causing damage and impact to pumping of the system, filtering system and pipeline.
In addition, in one embodiment of the present disclosure, as shown in
With the above-mentioned solution, the filtering protection device is mounted on the liquid return wall of the process treatment tank 100, and can effectively prevent debris from entering the liquid return port and damaging the pumping, filtering system and pipeline.
In some exemplary embodiments, as shown in
The frame and the filter mesh should be made of an acid-alkali resistant material, such as PP (polypropylene).
In addition, the area of the liquid return wall is large, and in order to ensure the installation stability of the filter mesh, as shown in
It will be understood, of course, that the particular configuration of the filter protection device 116 is not limited in practice.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the debris cleaning device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure is applicable to the electrochemical deposition process of a glass substrate, and can be applied to the field of electrochemical deposition of glass substrates with different sizes, and can also be applied to the relevant field of electrochemical deposition of metals such as Ni and Ag.
In addition, the debris cleaning device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure can also be applied to the field of debris cleaning and protection of other process treatment equipment such as for cleaning, drying, acid washing, alkaline washing, etc.
There are several points needing to be explained as follows:
(1) the drawings of the embodiments of the present disclosure relate only to the structures related to the embodiments of the present disclosure, and other structures can be generally designed according to the embodiments and drawings of the present disclosure.
(2) for purposes of clarity, the thickness of layers or areas is exaggerated or reduced in the drawings used to describe the embodiments of the present disclosure, i.e. the drawings are not necessarily to drawn as the actual proportions; it can be understood that when an element such as a layer, film, area or substrate is referred to as being “upper” or “lower” located on the other element, it can be “directly upper” or “lower” located on the other element or intervening elements may be present.
(3) without conflict, the embodiments of the present disclosure and features of the embodiments may be combined to yield new embodiments.
The above descriptions are only the specific implementation of this disclosure, and the protection scope of this disclosure is not limited thereto, and the protection scope of this disclosure should be subject to the protection scope of the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202022216543.0 | Sep 2020 | CN | national |
