Patent ID: 8148665

Claim:
An apparatus for soft baking a substrate, the substrate having a plurality of separate LCD panel regions and dummy regions, the apparatus comprising: a heating plate; a heating unit configured to heat the heating plate, wherein the heating unit is a heating wire installed in the heating plate; wherein the plurality of LCD panel regions includes LCD panel regions having different sizes; a plurality of lift pins to support the dummy regions of the substrate form soft baking of the substrate, the lift pins being located underneath interior and peripheral portions of the substrate; a corresponding number of driving units to activate the plurality of the lift pins beneath the interior and peripheral portions of the substrate, wherein the driving units are configured to individually actuate selective ones of the plurality of lift pins so as to protrude from an upper surface of the heating plate by an arrangement information of LCD panels, wherein the selective ones of the lift pins are adapted to have the substrate placed in contact with only the dummy region of the substrate to support the substrate, and each lift pin is adapted to be individually raised or lowered by a corresponding driving unit, and wherein each driving unit is installed below each lift pin; and a controller controlling the lift pins, wherein the controller receives arrangement information of the LCD panel regions determined before fabricating the substrate from a host and selects lift pins corresponding to a dummy region so that the lift pins beneath the interior and peripheral portions of the substrate are lifted by the driving units to contact the dummy regions and will not contact the LCD panel region, and the controller selects lift pins that can only be in contact with non-LCD panel regions and controls the driving units to lift all lift pins beneath the dummy regions after receiving the arrangement information.