Contamination Control for Flat Panel Display Manufacturing: Particle Counting and Airborne Molecular Contamination Control (AMC)
OLED N2 Box Particle Monitoring is becoming critical as technology refines.
The Flat Panel Display manufacturing industry is evolving rapidly with growth driven by mobile devices and resolution improvements. Most display manufacturers are investing in Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology which offers improvements in color fidelity, contrast, and power consumption over legacy TFT-LCD platforms. Compared with TFT-LCD, the OLED process is more sensitive to micro contamination, including particles, electrostatic discharge (ESD), airborne molecular contamination (AMC), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and even H2O molecules. To protect against these micro contaminants, many OLED processes and panel handling are performed in pure N2 environments. The high isolation requirements of the N2 box present challenges when attempting to monitor contamination using traditional cleanroom monitoring approaches.
OLED N2 Box Particle Monitoring Solutions Case Studies
N2 box particle monitoring systems should provide meaningful data, helping OLED manufacturers baseline their system, identify issues quickly, troubleshoot accurately and verify improvement actions over the long term. An example of the results achievable using particle monitoring in the OLED production process is shown for two tools in Figure 5 (download paper for all image). By monitoring the particle levels, the customer was able to identify improvements that could be
achieved by cleaning the tools in the N2 production environment and optimizing the clean N2
flow through the production box.
In addition to monitoring particles in the N2 production box, most OLED manufacturers monitor the rest of their clean air production environment. Depending on critical level definitions and monitoring frequency considerations, a traditional manifold particle monitoring system can be used to monitor this environment. This paper shows an example of a portion of a production layout with particle monitoring points identified. A full particle monitoring solution covering all OLED production areas will help OLED manufacturers achieve optimal production yields.
