Patent ID: 7902006

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a thin film transistor array substrate, the method comprising: (a) forming a structure comprising: one or more gate lines with a plurality of gate electrodes for an array of thin film transistors; a gate insulating film overlying the gate electrodes and providing gate dielectric for the thin film transistors; a plurality of semiconductor regions over the gate insulating film, the semiconductor regions providing an active region for each thin film transistor; one or more data lines; for each thin film transistor, source/drain electrodes which partially overlie the thin film transistor's active region, wherein one of the source/drain electrodes of each thin film transistor is connected to a respective data line; (b) forming a passivation film over the source/drain electrodes; (c) forming a first photoresist pattern of a first photoresist over the passivation film, the first photoresist pattern comprising a first portion partially overlying at least one source/drain electrode of each thin film transistor and overlying each of a plurality of pixel electrode regions each of which is a region to be occupied by a pixel electrode, the first photoresist pattern comprising a second portion thicker than the first portion; (d) patterning the passivation film using the first photoresist pattern as a mask; (e) removing the first portion of the first photoresist pattern to form a second photoresist pattern of the first photoresist, the second photoresist portion forming protrusions around the pixel electrode regions; (f) forming a transparent conductive overlying the second photoresist pattern and being recessed in each pixel electrode region; (g) forming a masking pattern over the transparent conductive film in each pixel electrode region, the masking pattern's top surface being below a top of the transparent conductive film over the second photoresist pattern; (h) patterning the transparent conductive film using the masking pattern as a mask to form each said pixel electrode; and (i) removing the masking pattern.