Canon Inc. will release MPAsp-E1003H, a new flat panel display (FPD) lithography system compatible with 6-Gen¹ that achieves a high yield with wider exposure than previous models, in early June 2024.

Demand for vehicle displays has been diversifying and increasing in recent years. This is due to advancements in automatic driving technology and the expansion of the market for electric cars. Display manufacturing equipment for vehicles or smartphones should be capable of producing high-quality products that are thin, light, and high-definition. Also, it should achieve high productivity by efficiently mass-producing such products.

Primarily, the new MPAsp-E1003H will help improve the efficiency of display manufacturing. This results from combining wider exposure and improved overlay accuracy with the new technology.

Enhanced Yield

The MPAsp-E1003H from Canon boasts enhanced yield thanks to the widest² exposure on the 6Gen glass plate. This latest system employs an optical system whose performance has been proven in the existing 8Gen substrate³ system MPAsp-H1003H (released in July 2022), which is capable of batch exposing 65-inch panels for such products as large-sized TVs. As a result, the new product’s single exposure width at a high resolution of 1.5 μm⁴ (L/S⁵) has increased by approximately 1.2 times⁶. Smartphone displays, for example, which require six exposure shots per glass plate with the previous system, can be exposed with four shots, which helps to improve productivity.

Additionally, even extra-wide large displays specifically made for vehicles can now be produced in two shots without any stitching to achieve efficient mass production.

High Overlay Accuracy

Also, the new product highlights high overlay accuracy. It deploys the same alignment system as the MPAsp-E813H 6Gen substrate system (released in Sept. 2014). Additionally, it features a newly developed non-linear correction REI (Real-Time Equalizing distorted Image) unit. Even with expanded exposure width, the new product realizes a high level of overlay accuracy (±0.30μm) thanks to the REI unit.

High Flexibility

Moreover, another feature of the new system is its high flexibility. In order to be adaptable to diverse manufacturing processes while securing high-quality production, the system inherits several proven mechanisms from MPAsp-H1003H, including the illumination mode switching function that enables ultra-high resolution, slit illuminance control (SIC) technology that maintains consistent exposure linewidth, and a universal chuck that makes it possible to select the vertical or horizontal orientation of the glass plate best suited to the exposure layout.

Notes:

¹Glass panels measuring 1,500×1,850mm, primarily used in the manufacturing of small- to medium-sized displays such as for smartphones

² Among Canon-made FPD lithography equipment compatible with 6th generation glass panels

³ Glass panels measuring 2,200×2,500mm, primarily used in the manufacturing of TV display panels

⁴ Micrometer (μm): 1μm = one millionth of a meter = one thousandth of a millimeter

⁵ Line and Space. Refers to patterns in which lines and spaces are separated by consistent intervals

⁶ In comparison to MPAsp-E813H

-11 June 2024-