Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The advantages of rapid thermal processing over slow, batch type processing have been demonstrated clearly in flat panel display manufacturing for a number of years. In the case of electroluminescence FPD, the brightness of the blue phosphor is increased by as much as 100%.
However, rapid thermal processors that use a lamp-based heat source - either a tungsten lamp array or a single arc lamp - have great difficulty in achieving heating uniformity over large areas.
By using a resistance-heated continuous heat source developed initially for RTP processing of large silicon wafers, temperature uniformity of less than +/− 2.5°C has been achieved over a panel with diagonal of 530mm.
A description of the system and its characteristics are presented.