APP improved its etching technology that utilizes atmospheric plasma and it is able to replace wet etching that utilizes chemical solution or dry etching that utilizes vacuum with its new etching technology.
APP (CEO Kang Bang-kwon) announced that it developed atmospheric plasma-based etching technology that can finely adjust width and thickness of an area of etching process on an insulator film.
It introduced this new technology at ‘SID Display Week 2019’.
Atmospheric plasma technology causes plasma in atmospheric state and applies to a process. It can reduce time and cost of entire production as it simplifies processes and reduces amount of space it takes from a production line.
Normally when a display substrate is manufactured, insulator film etches unnecessary parts or etches using chemical solutions with different reactions.
APP designed a technology that etches thin film without a mask by setting up a chemical reactor vertically. Width and thickness can be adjusted separately to shave off unnecessary insulator film.
It applied its atmospheric plasma etching technology to OLED process of a South Korean panel manufacturer. This manufacturer was able to improve its yield by about 2 to 3%. APP has been consistently informing domestic and foreign panel manufacturers about its atmospheric plasma etching technology.
“Our atmospheric plasma etching technology has six times faster processing speed than normal wet etching technology and it is also eco-friendly since it does not require chemical solution.” said a representative for APP. “Normal dry etching technology has even slower processing speed and requires more cost to create a vacuum state.” This representative also added that APP is currently working on having its atmospheric plasma etching technology implement point-type etching technology in the future to completely remove masks.
Staff Reporter Bae, Okjin | withok@etnews.com