CN-122003078-A - Liquid discharge device and article manufacturing method

CN122003078ACN 122003078 ACN122003078 ACN 122003078ACN-122003078-A

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a liquid discharge apparatus and a method of manufacturing an article. Provided is a technique suitable for high-speed and high-precision determination of whether a nozzle is good. The liquid discharge device includes a stage that holds a substrate and moves, a discharge head that discharges liquid droplets from a plurality of nozzles toward the substrate held by the stage, an imaging unit that images a plurality of liquid droplets discharged onto the substrate by the discharge head, and a processing unit that processes image data obtained by imaging by the imaging unit. The processing unit includes a plurality of image processing units that perform parallel processing on a plurality of partial areas of an image based on the image data to determine whether the plurality of nozzles are good or not. The plurality of image processing units perform the parallel processing as the partial region, each of the images having a2 nd drop segment of a size predetermined to allow a positional shift of a droplet, among the 1 st drop segments on the substrate where the droplets from the nozzles adjacent to each other do not interfere with each other.

Inventors

Gang Tian Fangxing

Assignees

佳能株式会社

Dates

Publication Date: 20260508
Application Date: 20251028
Priority Date: 20241101

Claims (17)

1. A liquid discharge device, comprising: A stage for holding a substrate and moving the substrate; a discharge head for discharging droplets from a plurality of nozzles toward the substrate held by the mounting table; an imaging unit for imaging a plurality of droplets discharged onto the substrate by the discharge head, and A processing unit configured to process image data obtained by imaging by the imaging unit, The processing section includes a plurality of image processing sections for performing parallel processing on a plurality of partial areas of an image based on the image data to determine whether the plurality of nozzles are good or not, The plurality of image processing units perform the parallel processing as the partial region, each of the images having a 2 nd drop segment of a size predetermined to allow a positional shift of a droplet, among the 1 st drop segments on the substrate where the droplets from the nozzles adjacent to each other do not interfere with each other.
2. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, When the determination result of the good determination regarding the target nozzle indicates an abnormality, each of the plurality of image processing units expands the target range to include the 1 st drop section of the 2 nd drop section corresponding to the target nozzle, and executes the good determination again.
3. The liquid discharge device according to claim 2, comprising: An image receiving unit that receives the image data from the image capturing unit; A1 st storage unit configured to store the image data received by the image receiving unit; a data extracting unit for extracting a part of the image data from the 1 st storage unit, and A plurality of 2 nd storage units provided corresponding to the plurality of image processing units and storing the part of the image data extracted by the data extracting unit, The data extracting unit extracts image data of the 2 nd drop section from the 1 st storage unit for each drop in turn, stores the image data in a storage unit corresponding to the drop among the plurality of 2 nd storage units, Each of the plurality of image processing units reads out the image data of the 2 nd drip section from a storage unit corresponding to each of the plurality of 2 nd storage units to determine whether or not the image data is good.
4. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 3, wherein, The data extracting section extracts image data of the 1 st drip section including the 2 nd drip section corresponding to the object nozzle from the 1 st storage section and saves the image data to a corresponding storage section corresponding to the object nozzle among the plurality of 2 nd storage sections, The image processing unit corresponding to the target nozzle among the plurality of image processing units reads out the image data of the 1 st drip section from the corresponding storage unit, and performs the determination of whether or not the 1 st drip section is the target range again.
5. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, The plurality of image processing units each detect the size and landing position of a droplet, and determine whether the droplet is good or not based on the detection result.
6. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 3, wherein, The plurality of image processing sections each include: a 2-valued processing unit that 2-valued image data read out from a storage unit corresponding to each image processing unit among the plurality of 2-th storage units; A parallel/serial conversion unit for converting a parallel signal composed of 2-valued output values from a plurality of pixels of the 2-valued processing unit into a serial signal, and And a judging unit for judging the liquid drop according to the serial signal.
7. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 6, wherein, Each of the plurality of image processing sections further includes a counting section that counts a 2-valued output value indicating the presence of a droplet in the serial signal to obtain a total number of pixels in which the droplet is present, The determination unit determines that the droplet size is normal when the total number is within a predetermined range, determines that the droplet size is abnormal when the total number is outside the predetermined range, and determines that the corresponding nozzle is not abnormal when the total number is zero.
8. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 7, wherein, The determination unit determines that the droplet has an excessively small shape if the total number is below the lower limit of the predetermined range, and determines that the droplet has an excessively large shape if the total number exceeds the upper limit of the predetermined range.
9. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 6, wherein, The plurality of image processing units further include a calculating unit that detects, based on the serial signal, a group of pixels in the 2 nd drop section that indicate the presence of a droplet in a1 st direction and a2 nd direction orthogonal to the 1 st direction, which are continuously predetermined or more, calculates the shape of the droplet based on the detection result, The determination unit determines a droplet based on the shape of the droplet calculated by the calculation unit.
10. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 6, wherein, Each of the plurality of image processing sections further includes: A detection unit configured to detect, based on the serial signal, a group of pixels in the 2 nd drop section, the group of pixels being a predetermined number or more in succession in a1 st direction and a 2 nd direction orthogonal to the 1 st direction, the group of pixels indicating the presence of a drop; a confirmation unit configured to confirm whether or not the 2 or more pixel groups are repeated in one of the 1 st direction and the 2 nd direction when the 2 or more pixel groups are detected as a result of the detection by the detection unit, and A calculation unit configured to calculate a shape of a droplet for the 2 or more pixel groups based on a result detected by the detection unit when the confirmation unit confirms that the 2 or more pixel groups overlap in either the 1 st direction or the 2 nd direction, The determination unit determines a droplet based on the shape of the droplet calculated by the calculation unit.
11. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 10, wherein, Each of the plurality of image processing units performs an error output when the confirming unit determines that the 2 or more pixel groups are not repeated in both the 1 st direction and the 2 nd direction.
12. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, Each of the plurality of image processing sections is constituted by hardware including at least any one of a field programmable gate array FPGA and an application specific integrated circuit ASIC.
13. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, The processing unit includes: A hardware operation part for forming the plurality of image processing parts, including at least any one of a field programmable gate array FPGA and an application specific integrated circuit ASIC, and A software operation unit using a central processing unit CPU, The liquid discharge device further includes a control unit that controls whether the hardware operation unit is to perform the good determination or whether the software operation unit is to perform the good determination.
14. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 13, wherein, The control unit causes the hardware operation unit to perform the good determination when the good determination is performed as a pretreatment in a printing process of discharging liquid to a main discharge section of the substrate to form a pattern on the substrate, and causes the software operation unit to perform the good determination when the good determination is performed in a maintenance process.
15. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, When the number of droplets in the 1 st direction in the image is N and the number of droplets in the 2 nd direction orthogonal to the 1 st direction is M, The number of the plurality of image processing sections is a number related to N or M.
16. The liquid discharge apparatus according to claim 15, wherein, The number of the plurality of image processing sections is a multiple or an integer fraction of N or M.
17. A method of manufacturing an article, comprising: A step of forming a liquid film by discharging a liquid on a substrate using the liquid discharge device according to any one of claims 1 to 16; drying the substrate on which the liquid film is formed to obtain the substrate on which a dried film is formed, and And a step of manufacturing an article from the substrate on which the dry film is formed.

Description

Liquid discharge device and article manufacturing method Technical Field The present disclosure relates to a liquid discharge apparatus and a method of manufacturing an article. Background The process for manufacturing the organic EL display panel includes a step of forming an organic light-emitting layer on a substrate by discharging ink droplets containing an organic light-emitting material using a liquid discharge device. In order to manufacture a high-definition panel, uniformity in film thickness and film quality is required for each pixel to be produced, and high-precision control is required for a nozzle for ejecting ink droplets. Therefore, in general, a nozzle inspection device mounted on a liquid discharge device is used to check the state of a nozzle, and the nozzle is controlled with high accuracy so that each pixel of an organic light-emitting layer has a uniform film thickness and film quality. For example, patent document 1 discloses that after the maintenance process of the nozzle is completed, the droplet is discharged onto the inspection substrate, the dropped droplet is imaged, and the drop position deviation and drop area of the droplet are measured. In patent document 1, the states of the nozzles are classified based on the measurement results, and the nozzles having a drop position shift and a drop area exceeding a predetermined value are determined as defective nozzles. Patent document 2 discloses a method of dropping a droplet from a nozzle in an inspection unit, and determining discharge failure by capturing images of the dropped droplet using a plurality of inspection cameras. Prior art literature Patent literature Patent document 1 Japanese patent application laid-open No. 2015-160153 Patent document 2 Japanese patent application laid-open No. 2009-274068 Disclosure of Invention However, in patent document 1, in an inspection step different from an ink application step of a liquid discharge device in a manufacturing step of a display panel, a determination of a drop position shift from a plurality of nozzles and a non-discharge of the nozzles is performed. Therefore, when a defective nozzle occurs in the coating process, the defective nozzle cannot be disposed of in the coating process or the subsequent coating process. In patent document 1, the drop position shift and the drop area are measured using an image recognition technique. Since the amount of computation of image recognition increases in proportion to the number of nozzles, it may be difficult to perform inspection in a short time in the case of a large-scale liquid discharge apparatus having a large number of nozzles. In patent document 2, an inspection pattern is drawn when the workpiece is replaced after the drawing process is completed, and the inspection pattern is imaged to inspect discharge failure of the nozzle. Therefore, the inspection of the nozzle discharge failure is limited to the end of the drawing process, and cannot be performed before the drawing process. In addition, in patent document 2, whether each nozzle is normal is checked using an image recognition technique. Therefore, as in patent document 1, the amount of computation of image recognition increases in proportion to the number of nozzles, and therefore, in the case of a large-scale liquid discharge device having a large number of nozzles, it may be difficult to perform inspection in a short time. The present disclosure provides a technique suitable for determining whether a nozzle is good at high speed and with high accuracy. According to the 1 st aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a liquid discharge apparatus including a stage for holding a substrate and moving the substrate, a discharge head for discharging liquid droplets from a plurality of nozzles toward the substrate held by the stage, an image pickup unit for picking up images of the plurality of liquid droplets discharged onto the substrate by the discharge head, and a processing unit for processing image data obtained by the image pickup unit, the processing unit including a plurality of image processing units for performing parallel processing on a plurality of partial areas of an image based on the image data to determine whether or not the plurality of nozzles are good, the plurality of image processing units each performing the parallel processing on, as the partial areas, an image of a2 nd droplet landing section having a size predetermined to allow a positional shift of a liquid droplet, among 1 st droplet landing sections on the substrate where the liquid droplets from adjacent to each other do not interfere with each other. According to the 2 nd aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method for producing an article, comprising a step of forming a liquid film by discharging a liquid on a substrate using the liquid discharge device according to the 1 st aspect, a step of drying the substrate on which the liquid film is formed to obtain the substrat