This application claims priority of China Patent Application No. CN 202010980216.4, filed on Sep. 17, 2020, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
Some embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an electronic device, and, in particular, to an electronic device with a high reliability.
Recently, flexible substrates with good bending properties have been widely used in various electronic devices to meet the requirements of users. Whether the wafer is being divided into independent chips or a thin film material is removed in a specific pattern, it is necessary to use a cutting process.
Generally, such a cutting process would be either a mechanical cutting process or a laser cutting process. However, mechanical cutting processes are limited by the slow cutting speed and the easy generation of cutting force, which can damage the object being cut. In addition, as the thickness of the substrate gradually becomes thinner, the cracks caused by the cutting process can increase rapidly. Therefore, a laser cutting process has been developed that can more accurately control the yield of the cutting process.
However, although the laser cutting process can be operated more easily than a mechanical cutting process, the laser cutting process still has a problem of heat damage at the cutting edge caused by the high laser power. The laser power is difficult to adjust finely. The non-cutting region may be damaged by the laser beam. Therefore, after the laser cutting process, the electronic device may include a heat-damaged region, which may reduce the overall reliability of the electronic device.
Therefore, although conventional electronic devices have gradually met their intended purposes, they have not fully met the requirements in all respects. Therefore, there are still some problems to be overcome with regard to electronic devices.
The present disclosure achieves the purpose of improving the reliability of the electronic device and/or increasing the process window of the laser cutting process by further providing a blocking component.
According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, an electronic device is provided. The electronic device includes a first substrate, a second substrate and a blocking component. The second substrate is opposite to the first substrate. The second substrate has a cutting edge extending along a cutting direction. The blocking component is disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate. The blocking component extends along the cutting direction and is disposed corresponding to the cutting edge.
The electronic devices of the present disclosure may be applied in various types of electronic devices with flexible substrate. In order to make the features and advantages of some embodiments of the present disclosure more understand, some embodiments of the present disclosure are listed below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and are described in detail as follows.
Through the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings, a person of ordinary skill in the art will better understand the viewpoints of some embodiments of the present disclosure. It should be noted that, in accordance with standard practice in the industry, various features are not drawn to scale and are used for illustration purposes. In fact, the dimensions of the various features may be arbitrarily increased or reduced for clarity of discussion.
The following disclosure provides many different embodiments or examples for implementing different features of the electronic device disclosed herein. Specific examples of each feature and its configuration are described below to simplify the embodiments of the present disclosure. Naturally, these are examples and are not intended to limit the present disclosure. For example, if the description mentions that the first feature is formed on the second element, it may include an embodiment in which the first feature and second feature are in direct contact, or may include an embodiment in which additional feature is formed between the first feature and the second feature thereby the first feature and the second feature do not directly contact. In addition, some embodiments of the present disclosure may repeat reference numerals and/or letters in different examples. Such repetition is for conciseness and clarity, and is not used to indicate the relationship between the different embodiments and/or aspects discussed herein. The spatial terms mentioned herein, such as “upper”, “lower”, “front”, “rear”, “left”, “right”, and the like, are directions with reference to the drawings. Therefore, the spatial terms are used to illustrate, but not to limit the present disclosure.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, terms related to bonding and connecting, such as “connect”, “interconnect”, and the like, unless specifically defined, may refer that two structures are in direct contact, or may also refer to two structures is not in direct contact wherein another structure is disposed between the two structures. The terms related to bonding and connecting may also include the embodiments where both structures are movable or both structures are fixed. In addition, the terms “electrically connect” and “coupling” include any direct and indirect electrical connection means.
In addition, the “first”, “second”, and the like mentioned in the specification or claims are used to name different elements or distinguish different embodiments or scopes and are not used to limit the upper limit or lower limit of the elements and are not used to limit the manufacturing order or the arrangement order of the elements.
Herein, the terms “about”, “substantially” and the like usually mean within ±20% of a given value or a given range, for example, within ±10%, within 5%, within 3%, within 2%, within 1%, or within 0.5%. The value provided in the specification is an approximate value, that is, without specific description of “about”, “substantially” and the like, the meanings of the terms may still be implied.
Some modifications of the embodiment are described below. In the different drawings and illustrated embodiments, similar reference numerals are used to designate similar features. It should be understood that additional operations may be provided before, during, and after the method, and some of the operations that are described may be deleted or replaced with other embodiments of the method.
Herein, an X-axis, a Y-axis, and a Z-axis are not limited to three axes of a rectangular coordinate system, such as the X, Y, and Z-axes, and may be interpreted in a broader sense. For example, the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis may be perpendicular to one another, or may represent different directions that are not perpendicular to one another. For ease of description, the X-axis direction is the width direction, the Y-axis direction is the length direction, and the Z-axis direction is the thickness direction. Hereinafter, the direction of laser cutting is referred to as the cutting direction, so the cutting edge extends along the cutting direction after being cut. It should be noted that, in an embodiment of the present disclosure, the cutting direction extends along the Y-axis direction, but it is not limited thereto. The cutting direction may be the X-axis direction, the Y-axis direction, the Z-axis direction, any combination thereof, or any direction in which a cut needs to be made. It should also be noted that, for ease of understanding, the width of the cutting edge is exaggerated in the figures.
In some embodiments, the electronic device of the present disclosure may include a display device, an antenna device, a sensing device, a light-emitting device, a touch display, a curved display, or a free shape display, but not limited thereto. The electronic device may be a bendable, flexible or curved electronic device. Here, the term “flexible” means that the electronic device (ED) may be curved, bent, folded, rolled, flexed, stretched, and/or made to undergo another, similar deformation, hereinafter referred to as “flexible,” to refer to the above-mentioned deformations. For example, the electronic device may include liquid crystal (LC), light emitting diode, quantum dot (QD), fluorescence, phosphor, another suitable display media, or some combination of the materials listed above, but it is not limited thereto. For example, the light emitting diode may include an organic light emitting diode (OLED), mini light emitting diode (mini LED), micro light emitting diode (micro LED) or quantum dot (QD, for example, QLED, QDLED), or another suitable material, and the materials may be combined arbitrarily, but it is not limited thereto. The display device may include, for example, a spliced display device, but it is not limited thereto. The antenna device may be, for example, a liquid crystal antenna, but it is not limited thereto. The antenna device may include, for example, an antenna spliced device, but it is not limited thereto. It should be noted that the electronic device may be any combination of the foregoing examples, but it is not limited thereto. In addition, the shape of the electronic device may be rectangular, circular, polygonal, a shape with curved edges, or another suitable shape. The electronic device may have a peripheral system, such as a driving system, a control system, a light source system, a shelf system, or the like to support the display device, antenna device or spliced device.
In other words, the electronic device including a blocking component of the present disclosure may be applied in any electronic device including a flexible substrate, for example: LCD such as TFT-LCD, QLED, OLED, Micro-LED, and the like, but it is not limited thereto. In some embodiments, the electronic device including the blocking component of the present disclosure may be applied to any process that requires performing a laser cutting, for example: applied to the back-end IC manufacturing process, or applied to the removal process of the material with a specific pattern on the film material, but it is not limited thereto. The blocking component of the present disclosure may be disposed to correspond to the cutting edge during any process stage.
Referring to
In some embodiments, the blocking component 210 may be disposed between the first substrate 10 and the second substrate 30. The blocking component 210 may be disposed on the first substrate 10 and/or on the second substrate 30. There may be one or more blocking components 210.
Still referring to
In some embodiments, the source of the laser beam may be a gas laser source, a solid laser source, a semiconductor laser source, or another suitable laser source. For example, the laser source may be Ar+, ruby, YAG (neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum ruby), CO2 laser source, but it is not limited thereto.
Since the electronic device of the present disclosure is provided with the blocking component 210 corresponding to the cutting edge 400, when the laser beam performs laser cutting along the cutting edge 400, the integrity of the non-cutting region under the blocking component 210 may be ensured.
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Therefore, the electronic device of the present disclosure may be a liquid crystal display, such as a thin film transistor liquid crystal display. Alternatively, the liquid crystal display may be a twisted nematic (TN) liquid crystal display, a super twisted nematic (STN) liquid crystal display, a double layer super twisted nematic (DSTN) liquid crystal display, vertical alignment (VA) liquid crystal display, multi-domain vertical alignment (MVA) liquid crystal display, in-plane switching (IPS) liquid crystal display, fringe field switching (FFS) liquid crystal display, cholesteric liquid crystal display, blue phase liquid crystal display or any other suitable liquid crystal display, but not limited thereto.
In some embodiments, the blocking component 210 may include a metal material. The metal material includes aluminum, copper, gold, silver, an alloy thereof, a combination thereof, or another suitable metal, but it is not limited thereto. In some embodiments, the reflectivity of the blocking component 210 to the laser beam is substantially equal to or greater than 80%. Therefore, the metal material included in the blocking component 210 may be any metal material with a reflectivity of 80% or more to the laser beam. For example, the reflectivity may substantially be equal to or greater than 88%, or it may substantially be equal to or greater than 95%. If the reflectivity of the blocking component 210 to the laser beam is less than 80%, it may be difficult for the blocking component 210 to effectively block the energy of the laser beam, or it may be difficult to effectively reflect the laser beam, which may result in damage to the non-cutting region under the blocking component 210.
In some embodiments, the non-cutting region may be at least a portion or all of the first substrate 10. In some embodiments, the non-cutting region may include at least a portion or all of the first base 100, a metal layer 110, an insulating layer 120, and/or any other layer under the blocking component 210. In other words, the non-cutting region may be any region that is not damaged and/or cut during the laser cutting process. In some embodiments, a portion of the non-cutting region may be, for example, the bonding region R1. For example, an outer lead bonding may be disposed on the bonding region R1, but the disclosure is not limited thereto.
In some embodiments, the blocking component 210 has a width W along the X-axis direction. The width W may be 10 μm to 400 μm (inclusive), or 10 μm to 200 μm (inclusive). Therefore, the probability of the electronic device being damaged by external static electricity may be reduced. In some embodiments, the cutting edge 400 is an edge of the second substrate 30. In some embodiments, when viewed in a cross-sectional view, the width from one end of the blocking component 210 to the cutting edge 400 along the X-axis direction and the width from the other end of the blocking component 210 to the cutting edge 400 along the X-axis direction may be substantially the same, and are about 5 μm to 200 μm (inclusive). That is, a virtual extending line of the cutting edge 400 of the second substrate 30 may evenly divide the width W of the blocking component 210, so that the electronic device has a good process window for the laser cutting process. However, it should be particularly noted that in the present disclosure, the blocking component 210 is disposed so that it corresponds to the cutting edge 400. That is, once the virtual extending line of the cutting edge 400 falls within the range of the width W of the blocking component 210, the blocking component 210 can protect the non-cutting region under the blocking component 210. In other words, the width from one end of the blocking component 210 to the cutting edge 400 along the X-axis direction and the width from the other end of the blocking component 210 to the cutting edge 400 along the X-axis direction may be substantially different.
In some embodiments, the blocking component 210 has a thickness T along the Z-axis direction. The thickness T may be 500 Å to 15000 Å (inclusive), or 500 Å to 10000 Å (inclusive). Therefore, the purpose of preventing the energy of the laser beam from damaging the non-cutting region under the blocking component 210 may be achieved. If the thickness T of the blocking component 210 is less than 500 Å, the blocking component 210 may be difficult to effectively block the laser beam, resulting in the possibility of damaging the non-cutting region under the blocking component 210.
Since the blocking component 210 is provided in the electronic device of the present disclosure, when the laser cutting process is performed by using a laser beam along the cutting edge 400, the excess energy of the laser beam will be reflected by the blocking component 210, thereby reducing the area of the non-cutting region which is thermally damaged by the excessive laser energy. Besides, when the laser power for cutting the second substrate 30 is increased, the integrity of the non-cutting region under the second substrate 30, that is the non-cutting region under the blocking component 210, still be ensured. Therefore, the electronic device including the blocking component of the present disclosure may provide a good process window for the laser cutting process, and therefore has excellent reliability.
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The first substrate 10 may further include a first base 100, a metal layer 110 disposed on the first base 100, and an insulating layer 120 disposed on the metal layer 110. A portion of the metal layer 110 may be used as a TFT array. The other portion of the metal layer 110 may be used as a wiring layer for connecting the above-mentioned TFT array. In some embodiments, the metal layer 110 may be a single layer or a multilayer structure. The insulating layer 120 may be used to make the alignment of the liquid crystal material uniform, reduce the coupling capacitance, and/or reduce the burden of the data line provided in the electronic device. The insulating layer 120 may include plastic, photoresist, or another suitable material. For example, the insulating layer 120 may include an acrylate material, an epoxy acrylate material, a siloxane material, or a combination thereof. In some embodiments, the insulating layer 120 may have a function of planarizing the surface of the first substrate 10, but the disclosure is not limited thereto. In some embodiments, other film layers may be disposed on, in, or under the first substrate 10. In other words, other film layers may be disposed on the first base 100, but the disclosure is not limited thereto.
The second substrate 30 may further include a second base 300, a black matrix layer 310 disposed on the second base 300, and an over coat (insulating) layer 320 disposed on the black matrix layer 310. That is, the black matrix layer 310 may be disposed between the coat layer 320 and the second base 300. The black matrix layer 310 may be used to define sub-pixels or pixel regions of the electronic device. For example, the black matrix layer 310 is disposed on a surface of the second substrate 30 facing the first substrate 10, but it is not limited thereto. The black matrix layer 310 may include black photoresist, black printing ink, black resin, or any other suitable black matrix material, but it is not limited thereto. The over coat layer 320 may include organic insulating materials such as photosensitive resin, or inorganic insulating materials such as silicon nitride, silicon oxide, silicon oxynitride, silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, or a combination thereof, but it is not limited thereto. In some embodiments, the over coat layer 320 may have the function of protecting other film layers disposed between the second base 300 and the over coat layer 320. In some embodiments, other film layers may be disposed on, in, or under the second substrate 30. In other words, other film layers may be provided on the second base 300, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the second substrate 30 may not include the black matrix layer 310 and/or the over coat layer 320, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto.
As shown in
In some embodiments, the cutting edge 400 extends from the second base 300 to the over coat layer 320 until it contacts the blocking component 210. Therefore, the position of the blocking component 210 can control an extending depth of the laser beam along the Z-axis direction during the laser cutting process. Therefore, the cutting depth of the laser cutting process can be easily controlled by adjusting the position of the blocking component 210 in the electronic device.
Here, the detailed process of forming the electronic device and performing the laser cutting process of the electronic device is described. It should be noted that in order to concisely explain the concept of the present disclosure, the main elements are listed, so for a person of ordinary skill in the art may dispose other elements.
First, a sacrificial layer 101 is provided. The sacrificial layer 101 is used as a carrier, and the first substrate 10 is disposed on the sacrificial layer 101. The first substrate 10 may include a first base 100 and a TFT array disposed on the first base 100, and any other suitable components. The metal layer 110 and the insulating layer 120 may be sequentially disposed on the first base 100 according to requirements.
On the other hand, another sacrificial layer (not shown) is provided and used as a carrier. The second substrate 30 is disposed on the sacrificial layer. The second substrate 30 may include a second base 300. The black matrix layer 310 and an over coat layer 320 may be sequentially disposed on the second base 300 according to requirements.
Then, the blocking component 210 is further disposed on the over coat layer 320, that is, the blocking component 210 is disposed on the second substrate 30. Next, the second substrate 30 and the first substrate 10 are face-to-face and bonded by the encapsulation adhesive 200. A liquid crystal material is poured into the space formed by the second substrate 30, the first substrate 10, and the encapsulation adhesive 200. That is, the first substrate 10 and the second substrate 30 are subjected to a face-to-face bonding process. Wherein, as shown in
The laser cutting process is performed to obtain the required electronic devices. A laser beam is applied to the cutting edge 400, so that the laser beam passes through the second base 300, the black matrix layer 310, and the over coat layer 320 on the blocking component 210, in order to cut the second base 300, the black matrix layer 310, and the over coat layer 320. However, when the laser beam hits the blocking component 210, the laser beam is blocked and cannot continue cutting. Therefore, the blocking component 210 can excellently protect all features under the blocking component 210. The laser cutting process of the present disclosure may be, for example, a laser half-cut process, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto.
Next, the region R2 is removed to expose a portion of the first substrate 10, and the exposed portion of the first substrate 10 is the bonding region R1. The bonding region R1 may include the outer lead bonding disposed thereon. In some embodiments, by disposing the blocking component 210, during the laser cutting process, the energy of the laser beam is reduced, or a portion of the laser beam is reflected to prevent the laser beam from damaging the non-cutting region, thereby improving the process window of the laser cutting process. At the same time, the position of the cutting edge 400 is accurately controlled, so the size of the region R2 in the X direction may also be effectively reduced. Thus, the size of the liquid crystal material contained in the electronic device is increased, and a larger effective area is obtained. In addition, the size of the corresponding bonding region R1 may be reduced, and the size of the periphery region can be reduced.
In some embodiments, the blocking component 210 may serve as a component for blocking the laser beam. Also, the blocking component 210 may electrically connect with other features and/or serve as a heat sink. For example, the blocking component 210 may also be used as a metal component for signal transmission. The blocking component 210 may improve the heat dissipation performance of the electronic device.
In some embodiments, after performing the laser cutting process, the sacrificial layer 101 may be removed. The method of removing the sacrificial layer 101 may include laser removal, but it is not limited thereto.
In other embodiments, the position and number of the blocking component 210 may be changed. As shown in
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In some embodiments, a touch layer (not shown) may optionally be further provided on the encapsulation layer 130. In the case where a touch layer is provided on the encapsulation layer 130, the blocking component 210 may be provided on the touch layer. In other words, similar to the foregoing embodiments, when the first substrate 10 includes a multi-layer film and the second substrate 30 includes another multi-layer film, that is, other single-layer or multi-layer films are provided on the first base 100, and other single-layer or multilayer films are provided on the second base 300, the blocking component 210 is provided between the outermost layer of the single-layer or multilayer film on the first base 100 and the outermost layer of the single-layer or multilayer film on the second base 300. In some embodiments, portions of the first base 100 and the sacrificial layer 101 corresponding to the region R2 may be removed by the laser cutting process.
In summary, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure, when the laser half-cut is performed, the present disclosure can reduce the energy of the laser beam or reflect a portion of the energy of the emitted laser beam during the laser cutting process by disposing the blocking component corresponding to the cutting edge. Therefore, the electronic device including the blocking component of the present disclosure can prevent the laser beam from damaging the non-cutting region to improve the reliability of the electronic device. For example, when the electronic device including a blocking component of the present disclosure is cut by using a laser beam with strong energy, the process window of the laser cutting process can be improved and/or a high cutting yield is maintained. Furthermore, the present disclosure can more effectively improve the process window of the laser cutting process by providing a blocking component with a specific width, thickness, reflectivity, and/or a specific material.
On the other hand, after irradiating by the laser beam, the blocking component is not easily damaged by the laser beam. Thus, the blocking component can have other functions. For example, the blocking component can further serve as a heat sink, an interconnection feature, and/or a signal transmission feature. Besides, the present disclosure can further improve the process window of the laser cutting process and the reliability of the device by disposing a plurality of blocking components. Moreover, the electronic device including the blocking component of the present disclosure can increase the process window for the laser cutting process.
Although some embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages have been disclosed, it should be understood that a person of ordinary skill in the art may change, replace, substitute and/or modify the present disclosure without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure. In addition, the scope of the present disclosure is not limited to the manufacturing process, machine, manufacturing, material composition, device, method, and step in the specific embodiments described in the specification. A person of ordinary skill in the art will understand current and future manufacturing processes, machine, manufacturing, material composition, device, method, and step from the content disclosed in some embodiments of the present disclosure, as long as the current or future manufacturing processes, machine, manufacturing, material composition, device, method, and step performs substantially the same functions or obtain substantially the same results as the present disclosure. Therefore, the scope of the present disclosure includes the above-mentioned manufacturing process, machine, manufacturing, material composition, device, method, and steps. Moreover, each of the claims constitutes an individual embodiment, and the scope of the present disclosure also includes combinations of each of the claims and embodiments. The features among the various embodiments can be arbitrarily combined as long as they do not violate or conflict with the spirit of the disclosure.
The foregoing outlines features of several embodiments of the present disclosure, so that a person of ordinary skill in the art may better understand the aspects of the present disclosure. A person of ordinary skill in the art should appreciate that, the present disclosure may be readily used as a basis for designing or modifying other processes and structures for carrying out the same purposes and/or achieving the same advantages of the embodiments introduced herein. A person of ordinary skill in the art should also realize that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure, and that they may make various changes, substitutions, and alterations herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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202010980216.4 | Sep 2020 | CN | national |