Abstract:
A conductive line pattern of a pad area includes a plurality of terminals arranged side by side. Each terminal includes an opening portion that surrounds a bonding pad of the substrate and with a side edge and a line portion connecting with the side edge of the corresponding opening portion. The relative position of each line portion and the corresponding opening portion varies according to the location of the terminal in the pad area. A pattern of conductors ( 74 ) on a film ( 72 ) is to be bonded to the bonding pads at the openings ( 64 ) and the line portions ( 66 ) positional correspondence to the conductors ( 74 ) is used to detect alignment error. If any of the line ( 66 ) are located in the middle of a conductor ( 74 ) it serves to indicate an improper shift of the film ( 72 ).

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention is related to a conductive wire pattern of a pad area and a method of monitoring a bonding error of a film, and more particularly, to a conductive wire pattern of a pad area that can serve as a reference basis of monitoring a bonding error of a film and the method of monitoring the bonding error thereof. 
     2. Description of the Prior Art 
     An array substrate and a color filter (CF) substrate are separately fabricated in the general fabrication of a liquid crystal display (LCD). The fabrication of the array substrate includes several steps of semiconductor process such as thin film deposition, photolithography, and etching processes in order to fabricate thin film transistor (TFT) array. The CF substrate includes color filters corresponding to the TFTs or pixels in an array arrangement on a substrate. After the fabrication of the array substrate and the CF substrate are completed, attachment of the two substrates would been taken place followed by a breaking or segmenting process. 
     Please refer to  FIG. 1 .  FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of a conventional LCD panel  10 . The conventional LCD panel  10  includes a CF substrate  12  and an array substrate  14 , wherein the CF substrate  12  is smaller in size than the array substrate  14 . Thus, part of the array substrate  14  would be exposed by the CF substrate  12 . The exposed array substrate  14  by the CF substrate  12  is usually determined as the non-display region  16 . A plurality of terminals are disposed within the non-display region  16 , so as to electrically connect the wires of the internal wires of the LCD panel  10  such as scan lines or signal lines to an external control circuit. Please refer to  FIG. 2 .  FIG. 2  is a schematic diagram of a part of a terminal  20  of the LCD panel  10  of  FIG. 1 . In general, the terminal  20  includes an opening portion  22  and a line portion  24 , wherein the main function of the opening portion  22  is to transfer external control signals to the internal wires of the LCD panel  10 . Thus, when the fabrication of the LCD panel  10  is completed, films such as printing wire board (PWB) films are usually bonded to the non-display region  16 , and the conductive wire pattern on the films is electrically connected to the opening portion  22  for transferring the external signals. As shown in  FIG. 3 , when the film (not shown) is bonded to the non-display region  16 , the conductive pattern  26  on the surface of the film is supposed to cover the center portion of the terminal  20 , thus enabling the distances d 1  and d 2  between the conductive pattern  26  and the both sides of the opening portion  22  to be equal. 
     However, in the process of bonding/attaching the film, there are possibilities that mismatch on the machine or tool lead to errors of the bonding location. As shown in  FIG. 4 , since a bonding error (or so called attaching aberration) of a film occurred, the conductive pattern  26  on the film is displaced to near the right side of the terminal  20 , such that the distance d 1 , the distance between the conductive pattern  26  and the left side of the opening portion  22 , is larger than the distance d 2 , the distance between the conductive pattern  26  and the right side of the opening portion  22 . From the above, it is concluded that there are inevitable bonding error in the conventional film bonding technology; it is therefore the bonding error of attaching a film must be monitored. The conventional method of testing the bonding error of a film can be classified into three types, one of which is utilizing sensors including charge coupled device (CCD) for carrying out the test. The detector must utilize a CCD sensor to search for the non-display region  16  and make sure if bonding error of a film occurred. If a bonding error is determined, the shifted length of the film is then calculated by the scale ruler of the CCD sensor. However, the shortcomings of this kind of test include that the LCD panel  10  has to be especially delivered to the machine with the sensor so as to carry out the test. Besides, the detector has to use the CCD sensor to search for the location of the targets of the test with consuming much time and there are possibilities that no errors be detected. In addition, there are requirements of the standards of the sensor, for instance, the sensor needs to scales of measurement and the built-in measuring programs. Furthermore, the accuracy of the test is questionable. 
     In the second type of conventional method of testing the bonding error of a film, a detector will directly use measuring tools to detect the bonding error between the terminals  20  and the conductive pattern  26  after bonding the film. Bonding error of a film and the shifted distance to the left or to the right may be determined through measuring the distance d 1  and the distance d 2 , where the distance d 1  represents the distance between the conductive pattern  26  and the left side of the opening portion  22 , and the distance d 2  is the distance between the conductive pattern  26  and the right side of the opening portion  22 . However, the shortcomings of this measure method include troublesome testing procedures and lack of accuracy. 
     In another aspect, the third conventional method of testing the bonding error of a film is utilizing the shifting measuring mark to measure the distance of the error of the film. First, a shifting measuring mark  30  is formed by exposure on the array substrate  14 . As shown in  FIG. 5 , the shifting measuring mark  30  includes three sub-marks  30   a ,  30   b ,  30   c , which are triangles with vertex angle facing the top. A shifting measuring mark  32  in the form of an up-side-down triangle is formed on the film, too. When the film is bonded to the terminals  20  without error (as the relative position of the terminals  20  and the conductive pattern  26  on the left of  FIG. 5 ), the vertex angle of the up-side-down triangle in the bottom of the shifting measuring mark  32  on the film will meet the mid-point of the shifting measuring mark  30 , the vertex angle of the sub-mark  30   b  in the middle of the shifting measuring mark  30 . Please refer to  FIG. 6 .  FIG. 6  illustrates the condition when bonding error of a film occurs. As shown on the left of  FIG. 6 , the bonded film shifted to the right for a certain length, the vertex angle of the shifting measuring mark  32  happens to meet the vertex angle of the sub-mark  30   c  of the shifting measuring mark  30 . It is therefore determined that the film is shifted to the right for 3 micrometers (um). However, there are still shortcomings of the third measure method: due to the imaging limitation of the exposure machine, patterns smaller than 3 um may not be formed. The sharp points of the vertexes of the triangle patterns may not be perfectly formed as well, and a rounded pattern may be obtained. Thus accuracy of the measurement of the shifted length would be influenced. 
     Therefore, the method on how to determine if a bonding error of a film occurred and how to measure the bonding error of a film in an easy and efficient way remains as important issues in the LCD panel industry. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     One objective of the present invention is to provide a special conductive line pattern of a pad area and a method of utilizing the conductive wire pattern to monitor a bonding error of a film, so that the efficiency and the accuracy of detecting bonding error of a film is increased. The problem of the conventional method of detecting the bonding error of a film includes time consuming with the troublesome procedures, causing low efficiency and not being able to control the accuracy is thus solved. 
     According to the present claims, a conductive line pattern of a pad area is provided. The conductive line pattern of a pad area includes a plurality of terminals arranged side by side and along a first direction in the pad area, each of the terminals comprising: an opening portion with at least a side edge of the opening portion; and a line portion connecting with the side edge; wherein a relative position of each of the line portion and each of the corresponding opening portion varies according to a location of the terminal in the pad area. 
     According to the present claims, a method of monitoring the bonding error of a film is further provided. The method of monitoring the bonding error of a film includes providing a film having a plurality of conductive patterns thereon; and providing a target area with a surface for bonding the film, wherein the target area comprises a plurality of base marks and a plurality of aberration marks, and each of the base marks corresponds to one of the conductive patterns, the base marks are arranged along a first direction and side by side in the target area. Each of the aberration marks connects to one of the base marks, wherein the relative position between each of the aberration marks and the corresponding base mark differs in accordance with the location of the base mark in the target area. The method of monitoring the bonding error of a film includes further includes bonding the film onto the target area, and observing the relative position between the conductive pattern and the aberration marks and the location of the base marks in the target area corresponding to the conductive patterns to determine if a bonding error of the film occurs. 
     These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of a conventional LCD. 
         FIG. 2  is a schematic diagram of a part of a terminal of the LCD panel of  FIG. 1 . 
         FIG. 3  is a schematic diagram of bonding a film to the terminal of  FIG. 2 . 
         FIG. 4  is a schematic diagram of a film with a bonding error. 
         FIG. 5  and  FIG. 6  are schematic diagrams of the conventional method of monitoring a bonding error of a film utilizing a shifting measuring mark. 
         FIG. 7  is a schematic diagram of a conductive wire pattern in application of an LCD panel of the present invention. 
         FIG. 8  is an amplified schematic diagram of the conductive wire pattern in a pad area of the LCD panel of  FIG. 7 . 
         FIG. 9  is an amplified schematic diagram of a portion of the pad area of  FIG. 8 . 
         FIG. 10  and  FIG. 11  are schematic diagrams of a method of monitoring a bonding error of a film of the present invention. 
         FIG. 12  is a flow chart of the method of monitoring the bonding error of a film of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Please refer to  FIG. 7 .  FIG. 7  is a schematic diagram of a conductive wire pattern in application of an LCD panel of the present invention. An LCD panel  50  includes an array substrate  52  and a CF substrate  54 . The region of the array substrate  52  that is not covered by the CF substrate  54  is defined as a non-display region  56 . A plurality of pad areas  58  are disposed in the non-display region  56  (only the pad areas of the signal lines are shown in  FIG. 7 ), for disposing terminals so as to electrically connect to the outer circuit and drive the LCD panel  50 . 
     Please refer to  FIG. 8 .  FIG. 8  is an amplified schematic diagram of the conductive wire pattern in a pad area  58  of the LCD panel of  FIG. 7 . The conductive wire pattern  60  includes a plurality of terminals  62  that are parallel to each other along the Y direction and arranged side by side along the X direction in  FIG. 8 . Each of the terminals  62  includes an opening portion  64  and a line portion  66 . The opening portions  64  are used for electrically connecting to the conductive pattern of the film that would be later on bonded to the surface of the array substrate  52 , and the opening portions  64  may be utilized to transmit signals. The line portions  66  provide a function of location recognition during the rim grinding process of the LCD panel  50 . In addition, the line portions  66  may electrically connect to a static electricity eliminating apparatus (electrostatic discharge device), such as a short ring, before the rim grinding process to avoid damage caused by static electricity. Therefore, conductive materials such as metal materials are the preferred materials for the terminals  62  including the opening portions  64  and line portions  66 . There are pluralities of contact hole structures  68  in the opening portions  64 , which is utilized to electrically connect different material layers on the array substrate  52 . In addition, each of the opening portions  64  has a same width S 1 , and each of the line portions  66  also has a same width S 2 . Each of the opening portions  64  includes a side edge  64   a  of the opening portion, and each of the line portions  66  is connected to the side edge  64   a  of the corresponding opening portion  64 . However, the relative position of each of the line portions  66  and the corresponding opening portion  64  varies in accordance with the location of the terminals  62  in the pad area  58  in the present invention. 
     For further illustrations of the variation of the relative position between the terminals  62  and the opening portion  64 , different numerals are used to represent the line portions  66  that locate in different areas of the pad area  58 . A base line C is defined to be parallel in the Y direction in the pad area  58 , wherein the base line C is preferred to be the center line of the pad area  58 . The line portions  66  of the terminals  62  locating at the left of the base line C are represented by numerals L 1 , L 2 , L 3 , L 4 , L 5  and L 6  starting form the base line C to the outer (left) side of the pad area  58  in sequence. The line portions  66  of the terminals  62  locating at the right of the base line C are represented by numerals R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , R 4 , R 5  and R 6  starting form the base line C to the outer (right) side of the pad area  58  in sequence. As shown in  FIG. 8 , with respect to each of the opening portion  64 , the line portions R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , R 4 , R 5  and R 6  are shifted with one more unit of length to the right starting form the base line C to the outer side of the pad area  58 . Similarly, the line portions L 1 , L 2 , L 3 , L 4 , L 5  and L 6  are shifted with one more unit of length to the left starting form the base line C to the outer side of the pad area  58  until reaching the left border the opening portion  64 . 
     Please refer to  FIG. 9 .  FIG. 9  is an amplified schematic diagram of a portion of the pad area  58  of  FIG. 8 , wherein only the terminals  62  locating at the right side of the base line C are shown in  FIG. 9 , and the contact hole structure  68  in  FIG. 8  is not drawn. An opening portion center line C o  in parallel to the Y direction of  FIG. 8  is defined in each of the opening portions  64  (only the opening portion center line C o  corresponding to line portions R 2 , R 4  are shown in  FIG. 9 ), and the crossing point of the opening portion center line C o  and the corresponding side edge  64   a  of the opening portion  64  is defined as the midpoint O of each side edge  64   a . A line portion center line C L  in parallel to the Y direction in  FIG. 8  is further defined within each of the line portions  66 . Each of the line portion center lines C L  and the corresponding midpoint O of the side edge  64   a  have a relative-position difference value D in the line portion  66 . The relative-position difference values Dn of the line portions  66  locating at the right of the base line C is different, increasing starting from the base line C to the outer (right) side of the pad area  58 , wherein “n” of the above-mentioned “Dn” represents the n th  line portion  66  at the right of the base line C. In other words, the relative-position difference values D 1 , D 2 , D 3 , D 4 , D 5  and D 6  of the line portions R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , R 4 , R 5  and R 6  respectively has the following relationship: D 1 &lt;D 2 &lt;D 3 &lt;D 4 &lt;D 5 &lt;D 6 . If one unit length represents 1 um, the line portion R 1  is 1 um shifted to the right when comparing with the midpoint O of the side edge  64   a  of the opening portion  64 , while the line portion R 2  is 2 um shifted to the right when comparing with the midpoint O of the side edge  64   a , and line portion R 3  is 3 um shifted to the right when comparing with the midpoint O of the side edge  64   a , until the right side border of the line portion R 6  reaches the right side border of the opening portion  64 . Similarly, each of the line portions  66  and the corresponding opening portions  64  on the left of the base line C also have a relative-position difference value, increasing starting from the base line C to the outer (left) side, which will not be mentioned in details again. Hence, the line portions  66  in the pad area  58  are symmetrically arranged on both left and right side with respect to the base line C, which serves as a symmetric line. However, in other embodiments, the relative-position difference value between each of the line portions  66  and the corresponding opening portion  64  may be designed to decrease starting from the base line C to the outer side. Therefore, the relative-position difference values of any two adjacent terminals  62  locating at either left or right side of the base line C within the pad area  58  are different. 
     Please refer to  FIG. 10 .  FIG. 10  is a schematic diagram of a film with conductive pattern bonding onto the pad area without bonding error. As shown in  FIG. 10 , a film  72  with a plurality of conductive patterns  74  is provided. The film  72  is bonded onto the pad area  58  of  FIG. 8 , wherein the film  72  may be a PWB with at least a driving IC (not shown) disposed by tape carrier package (TCP). The driving IC may be electrically connected to the terminals  62  via the conductive patterns  74 . After bonding the film  72  onto the pad area  58 , each of the conductive patterns  74  on the film  72  will correspond to a terminal  62 . When no bonding error occurs, each of the line portions  66  will not locate in the middle of the corresponding conductive pattern  74  and will not equally separate the corresponding conductive pattern  74  into two parts. The line portions  66  will locates in one side of the corresponding conductive pattern  74 , for instance, the line portion R 1  locating at the right side of the base line C will locate to the right side of its corresponding conductive pattern  74 . In addition, the line portions  66  that locate at the outer side are shifted more deviated to the center of the conductive patterns  74 . 
     On the other hand, if a bonding error of the film  72  occurs, there would definitely be a line portion  66  that locates near to or just in the middle of the conductive pattern  74 . With reference to  FIG. 11 ,  FIG. 11  illustrates the situation that the film of  FIG. 10  with a bonding error occurs. As shown in  FIG. 11 , after bonding the film  72 , the line portion R 2  just locates in the middle of the corresponding conductive pattern  74  and equally separate the conductive pattern  74 , which is different from the position in  FIG. 10 . Thus, a bonding error of the film  72  can be determined. Since the line portion R 2  locates in the middle of the corresponding conductive pattern  74 , and the line portion R 2  is shifted 2 um or 2 units to the right when compared to the opening portion  64 , thus it may be concluded that the film  72  is shifted 2 um to the right during the bonding process. In other words, when the detector discovers a line portion Rn or Ln just locates in the middle of the corresponding conductive pattern  74 , it can be easily determined that the film  72  has shifted n micrometers or n units to the right or to the left. Moreover, in order for the detector to quickly determine/calculate that the line portion  66  locating in the middle of the conductive pattern  74  is the n th  line portion  66  at the left or at the right of the pad area  58 , as in finding the n value, the conductive wire pattern  60  in the pad area  58  may further include a base line mark  70  to label the location of the base line C. As a result, the detector may determine the n value with the base line mark  70  and may also define the line portion  66  is at the right side or at the left side of the base line C. As a result, which direction and how many units of length the film  72  has shifted can be easily determined. 
     In sum, the special design of conductive wire pattern of a pad area and an effective method of monitoring whether a bonding error of a film occurred and the shifted amount are provided in the present invention. The concept of determining the bonding error is to utilize the opening portions and line portions as base marks and aberration marks, respectively. The relative position of the aberration marks and the base marks varies with the location of the base mark in the pad area. Whether a bonding error of a film occurs may be determined through observing the relative locations of the aberration marks and the bonded conductive pattern. The steps of the method of monitoring a bonding error of a film is shown in  FIG. 12  and introduced as follows: 
     Step  100 : Provide a film having conductive patterns thereon; 
     Step  102 : Provide a target area with a surface for bonding the film, in other words, the above mentioned pad area, wherein a plurality of terminals in the pad area are arranged side by side and are parallel to each other. Each of the terminals includes an opening portion serving as a base mark and a line portion serving as aberration marks. Each of the base marks corresponds to an aberration mark, and the relative position between each of the aberration marks and the corresponding base mark differs in accordance with the location of the base mark in the target area; 
     Step  104 : Bond the film onto the target area; and 
     Step  106 : Observe the relative position between the conductive patterns and the aberration marks and the location of the base marks in the target area corresponding to the aberration marks to determine if a bonding error of the film occurs. 
     In addition, the method of determining if a bonding error of a film occurred mentioned in Step  106  comprises: 
     Step  202 : Observe the relative location between the conductive patterns and the corresponding aberration marks, and if any of the aberration marks (as the line portion R 2  shown in  FIG. 11 ) is just located in the middle of the corresponding conductive pattern and equally separates the conductive pattern into two parts, determine a bonding error of the film occurs; 
     Step  204 : Observe the location of the aberration mark mentioned in Step  202  (as the line portion R 2  shown in  FIG. 11 ) to determine that the aberration mark is the n th  aberration mark locating at the right side or the left side from the center line of the target area or a base line; and 
     Step  206 : Determine the film is shifted rightward or leftward with n units of length. 
     It is learnt from the above that according to the method of monitoring the bonding error film in the present invention, the detector will merely need to observe the pad area with the optical microscope (OM) to determine if bonding error of a film occurs. With the method of monitoring the bonding error of a film in the present invention, it is easily determined whether a bonding error of the film occurs and the shifted length to the left side or the right side. In comparison with the conventional method, there is no requirement of built-in measuring programs or the scales of measurement of sensors such as CCDs; the error determining scale would not be limited due to exposure limitations; a lot of time for searching the possible error and calculating the shifted length are not needed anymore; furthermore, lack of accuracy can be avoided. According to the concept of the present invention, the detector will merely need to observe the relative locations of the terminals and the conductive patterns on the film with the optical microscope to easily and quickly determine the length of the occurred bonding error of the film. In addition, no additional cost is required for forming the conductive wire pattern of the pad area according to the concept of the present invention. By slightly modifying the relative positions of the opening portions and the line portions of the conductive wire pattern, they may serve as the base marks and the aberration marks and be applied to the monitoring method of the present invention. It is to be noted that, the conductive wire pattern design of the pad area and the method of monitoring the bonding error of a film in the present invention is not limited to the conductive wire pattern design of the LCD panel or monitor the bonding error of a film in LCD panel fabrication, it may also be applied to other conditions with overlaying patterns that require monitoring or determining overlaying errors or shift errors. 
     Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention.