Method for debonding of thin glass substrate and carrier for manufacturing thin flexible displays

Abstract

Modern displays are becoming light, thin, and even curved and flexible. The thickness of glass substrates used in these displays has been reduced from its original value of 1.1 to 0.7 mm and eventually to 0.5 mm to create thinner displays. Glass substrates with a thickness of < 0.3 mm are extremely thin and fragile, can be easily deformed, and are therefore not suitable for direct incorporation into the display-manufacturing process. Glass-substrate suppliers bond thin glass substrates onto carrier glass substrates to form laminated glass substrates with increased overall thickness. The panel makers then manufacture the display on a laminated glass substrate. The carrier substrate is removed from the display to produce a thin panel. Glass-substrate makers debond the carrier from the thin glass substrate by applying mechanical force. However, the substrate may break during this debonding process. In this study, a novel method for bonding and debonding the carrier and glass substrates is proposed in which gas is injected between the carrier and thin glass substrate to separate them. This method effectively prevents the formation of edge defects in the thin glass substrate caused by breaks during the debonding process. We designed a debonding machine and established steps to debond the laminated glass substrate after a passive matrix organic light-emitting diode fabrication process. The results showed that this method can be used to efficiently debond the laminated glass substrate.