Patent ID: 6995047

Claim:
A method for fabricating a thin film transistor (TFT) for a liquid crystal display (LCD) device comprising the steps of: forming a gate electrode on a glass substrate and forming an active region above the gate electrode; forming a channel region by depositing a metal onto the active region, thereby forming a source and a drain on each end of the active region by patterning the metal using a photolithography process and etching an upper portion of the active region between the source and drain; and forming a pixel electrode which electrically contacts the drain by depositing a passivation layer on the upper surface of the structure and exposing a part of the drain by forming a contact hole through the passivation layer, wherein the photolithography process employs a slit type mask comprising: a slit formed between adjacent first and second light-shielding portions, and third light shielding portion centered in the slit; wherein the slit is positioned to correspond to the position of the channel region, which forms the channel region having a length less than 4 μm, but at least 1 μm.