Thin‐Film PVD (Rotary Target)

Summary

The production of flat panel displays (FPD) relies on sputtering technology for multiple process steps including backplane metallization, pixel electrodes as well as optical enhancement coatings, and touch screen panel layers. Integration of a rotary target assembly into a sputtering system needs a rotary cathode drive, connecting the cathode to the outside world, providing cooling water and power as well as the rotation drive for the target itself. In any case, the thin‐film transistors (TFT) needs gate, source and drain (S/D) metals, often referred to as metal 1 and metal 2, both deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) processes. Both the invisible indium tin oxide (ITO) and the anti‐reflective coating applications use absorption‐free dielectric materials to form optical thin‐film stacks that control light reflections through interference effects resulting from the reflections at the interfaces of alternating layers with different refractive indices.