JPH0729453A - Transparent touch panel and its manufacture - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a transparent touch panel having a good insulating state at non-input and capable of stable input by providing a spacer formed of a photoresist having electrodepositing property between two transparent electrode boards of the transparent touch panel in various displays. CONSTITUTION:A transparent touch panel 1 is formed of, as a transparent electrode, an upper transparent movable electrode board 3 made of film which has a transparent electrode 2 having a prescribed electrode pattern is formed; and a lower transparent fixed electrode board 4 consisting of a glass plate having the transparent electrode 2 formed on the whole surface, the bottom surface side is opposed to a display front surface, and a spacer 5 consisting of a photoresist having electrodepositing property is constituted in the middle with a prescribed pattern. The spacer 5 is formed by applying a negative electrodepositing photoresist onto the board 4 followed by exposure and development, and because it sufficiently holds the clearance between the lower electrode board 4 and the upper electrode base 3, the insulating state at non-input is satisfactory, the input impossible part by the spacer is minimized, and input stability is improved.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention is applied to, for example, an LCD (Liquid Liquid).
Crystal Display), PDP (Plasma Display Panel)
The present invention also relates to a resistance film type transparent touch panel used by being arranged on the front surface of a display such as an EL (Electro Luminescent) and a manufacturing method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a transparent touch panel which is arranged on the front surface of a display such as an LCD, PDP and EL and which performs an input operation by pressing the surface, two transparent electrode substrates constituting this transparent touch panel are used. By forming a spacer between them, the insulation state is maintained when there is no input.

Generally, a photoresist is used as the spacer. This photoresist is applied to a transparent electrode substrate by, for example, a roll coater method, and exposed / exposed.
By developing, a spacer having a desired pattern is formed. However, in the roll coater method described above, the photoresist is applied on the transparent electrode substrate by 0.5 to 2.0 μm.
Since it can be applied only to a film thickness of about 0.5 to 2.0 μm, the spacer formed is not sufficient to maintain a good insulating state between the transparent electrode substrates. Has become.

On the other hand, in order to maintain a good insulation state between the transparent electrode substrates, for example, a method of printing a spacer having a desired pattern on the transparent electrode substrates by a screen printer or the like can be considered. According to this method, the thickness of the spacer is 15 to
The thickness can be about 50 μm, a spacer thicker than the film thickness obtained by the roll coater method can be formed, and the insulating state between the transparent electrode substrates can be kept good.

However, there is a risk that dust or the like will enter between the transparent electrode substrates during printing, and it will be difficult to make the spacers smooth and uniform due to the shape of the printing plate of the printing machine. Further, in the above-mentioned screen printing machine, the size of the spacer also increases as the thickness of the spacer increases, so that there is a problem that an uninputtable portion by the spacer becomes large.

Therefore, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 4-162318, as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, a transparent electrode 12 formed on a transparent movable electrode substrate 13 and a transparent substrate formed on a transparent fixed electrode substrate 14. 12 and 12, a transparent touch panel 11 using a mixture of photoresist 15 and plastic beads 16 as a spacer is disclosed.

The transparent touch panel 11 has a film thickness of 0.5 to 2.0 μm, a dot angle of 100 μm, and a pitch of 50.
On the photoresist 15 formed in the pattern of 0 μm,
Since the plastic beads 16 having a diameter of 2 to 15 μm are mixed, the non-inputtable portion is made small and the insulating state between the transparent movable electrode substrate 13 and the transparent fixed electrode substrate 14 is made good.

[0008]

However, in the above-mentioned transparent touch panel 11, it is difficult to uniformly mix the plastic beads 16 mixed in the photoresist 15, so that the transparent movable electrode substrate 13 and the transparent fixed electrode substrate 14 are combined. It is not possible to make the interval constant, which makes it impossible to maintain a good insulation state when there is no input. As a result, it becomes impossible to bring the respective transparent electrode substrates into contact with each other due to uniform stress, which causes a problem that stable input cannot be performed.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a transparent touch panel which can maintain a good insulation state when no input is made and enables stable input, and a manufacturing method thereof. To provide.

[0010]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a transparent touch panel having a spacer made of a photoresist between two transparent electrode substrates, wherein the photoresist has an electrodeposition property. It is characterized by

The method of manufacturing a transparent touch panel according to a second aspect of the present invention comprises a step of applying a photoresist having an electrodeposition property to at least one transparent electrode substrate by electrodeposition treatment and applying the photoresist, and a transparent electrode coated with the photoresist. The substrate is characterized by including at least a step of exposing and developing a pattern corresponding to the spacer portion.

[0012]

According to the structure of the first aspect, since the photoresist has the electrodeposition property, the photoresist can be applied to the transparent electrode substrate by the electrodeposition treatment. by this,
Since the thickness of the applied photoresist can be increased, a sufficient gap can be provided to make the insulating state between the transparent electrode substrates good. Further, since the spacer is made of photoresist, its cross section can be made steep and the size (dot angle) of the spacer can be reduced. As a result, it is possible to reduce the non-inputtable portion of the transparent touch panel due to the spacer, so that it is possible to improve the input resolution. Therefore, it is possible to input with a uniform stress on the surface of the transparent touch panel, which enables stable input.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, a step of electrodeposition-treating a photoresist having an electrodeposition property on at least one transparent electrode substrate and applying the photoresist, and the step of applying the photoresist to the transparent electrode substrate. , A step that has been conventionally performed to increase the gap between the transparent electrode substrates by exposing and developing a pattern corresponding to at least the spacer portion, for example, a step of coating plastic beads and then mixing plastic beads It is possible to form a fine spacer having a large film thickness only by applying a photoresist and exposing / developing the photoresist without the need for a manufacturing process. This makes it possible to easily manufacture a transparent touch panel that has a good insulation state when not input and has high input stability.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The following will describe one embodiment of the present invention with reference to FIGS. In this embodiment, an analog transparent touch panel will be described.

As shown in FIG. 2, the transparent touch panel 1 according to the present embodiment includes an upper transparent movable electrode substrate (hereinafter referred to as an upper movable electrode substrate) 3 as a transparent electrode substrate and a lower transparent fixed electrode substrate. (Hereinafter, referred to as a lower fixed electrode substrate) 4, and a photoresist having an electrodeposition property (hereinafter, electrodeposited photoresist) between the upper movable electrode substrate 3 and the lower fixed electrode substrate 4. 5) is formed in a predetermined pattern, as shown in FIG.

The upper movable electrode substrate 3 has a thickness of 125 μm on which an ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) film (hereinafter referred to as a transparent electrode) 2 having a predetermined electrode pattern is formed.
PET (Polyethylene with non-glare hard coat
Terephthalate) film.

The upper fixed electrode substrate 4 is made of IT.
O film, that is, transparent electrode 2 is formed on the entire surface and has a thickness of 1.1 m.
It consists of m glass plate. The bottom surface side of the upper fixed electrode substrate 4 is arranged so as to face the front surface of a display such as an LCD, PDP or EL.

The spacer 5 is formed by applying a negative-type electrodeposited photoresist on the lower fixed electrode substrate 4 with a predetermined film thickness, for example, 5 μm, by electrodeposition, for example, 50.
It is formed by exposing and developing with a pattern of μm square dots and a pitch of 500 μm. The spacers 5 ... Provide a sufficient gap between the lower movable electrode substrate 4 and the upper movable electrode substrate 3 to maintain a good insulating state.

The manufacture of the transparent touch panel 1 will be described below with reference to FIG.

First, the upper movable electrode substrate 3 is manufactured by the following steps. First, the thickness of the transparent substrate is 125μ
The PET film with m non-glare hard coat is received in the manufacturing apparatus (step A).

Next, the PE received in the above manufacturing apparatus
A transparent electrode 2 is formed on one side of the T film by a vacuum deposition method or the like.
Forming an ITO film (step B).

Thereafter, Ag printing is performed on the ITO film to form an Ag film on the surface thereof (step C). Then
Carbon printing is performed on the Ag film to form a carbon film on the surface (step D).

Next, an insulating pattern having a predetermined electrode pattern is printed on the carbon film (step E). Then, in order to attach the upper movable electrode substrate 3 and the lower fixed electrode substrate 4, a double-sided tape is attached to the edge side of the upper movable electrode substrate 3 (step F).

After that, Ag is deposited along the above insulating pattern.
To form a desired electrode pattern (step G).

Next, the lower fixed electrode substrate 4 is manufactured by the following steps. First, the thickness of the transparent substrate is 1.1.
A mm glass plate is received in the manufacturing apparatus (step H).

Next, an ITO film as a transparent electrode is formed on one surface of the above glass plate by a vacuum deposition method or the like (step I).

After that, the above glass electrode substrate is used as an anode, and a stainless steel plate is used as a cathode. The glass plate is immersed in an electrodeposition tank filled with a negative type electrodeposition photoresist solution to carry out electrodeposition treatment, and the ITO of the glass electrode substrate is subjected. A photoresist having a predetermined film thickness is applied on the film (step J). The photoresist is applied with a film thickness of about 5 μm.

After the photoresist applied to the glass electrode substrate is dried, it is exposed by a photomask having a pattern of 50 μm square dots and a pitch of 500 μm as a pattern of the spacer 5, and the unexposed portion is developed and removed, The exposed portion of the photoresist is cured at 170 ° C. for 60 minutes to form 50 μm square dots and 5 μm thick spacers 5 (step K).

Next, Ag printing is performed on the glass electrode substrate on which the spacer 5 is formed (step L).

Then, the upper movable electrode substrate 3 and the lower fixed electrode substrate 4 formed by the above-mentioned steps are attached to the upper movable electrode substrate 3 by a double-sided tape so that the transparent electrodes 2 face each other. paste.

Any of the manufacturing steps of the upper movable electrode substrate 3, steps A to G, and the lower fixed electrode substrate 4, steps H to L, may be performed first. ,
Moreover, you may go in parallel.

In the transparent touch panel 1 manufactured by the above manufacturing process, since the photoresist has the electrodeposition property, the photoresist can be applied to the transparent electrode substrate by the electrodeposition treatment. As a result, the thickness of the photoresist to be applied can be increased, so that the thickness of the spacer can be increased, and it is sufficient to improve the insulation state between the transparent electrode substrates when no input is applied. A wide gap can be provided.

Further, since the spacer 5 is made of photoresist, its cross section can be made steep and the dot angle of the spacer 5 can be made small.
As a result, it is possible to reduce the non-inputtable portion due to the spacer on the transparent touch panel.

Therefore, since it is possible to input with a uniform stress on the surface of the transparent touch panel, stable input can be performed at all times, and the non-inputtable portion by the spacer 5 itself can be formed small. The input resolution can be improved.

Further, according to the above-mentioned manufacturing method, the step of increasing the thickness of the spacer 5 is not required, and the fine spacer 5 having a large film thickness is formed only by coating the photoresist and exposing / developing the photoresist. Therefore, it is not necessary to separately increase the thickness of the spacer,
The manufacturing process can be shortened. by this,
It is possible to easily manufacture a transparent touch panel having high input stability while maintaining a good insulation state when no input is made.

In this embodiment, the surface of the upper movable electrode substrate 3, that is, the pressing operation surface is subjected to the non-glare hard coat treatment, but the present invention is not limited to this, and for example, only the hard coat treatment may be applied. Also, antireflection treatment or the like may be performed.

Further, the transparent touch panel 1 is arranged and used on a display such as an LCD.
For example, the upper polarizing plate of the liquid crystal display may be formed instead of the upper movable electrode substrate 3 without being limited to this.

Further, in this embodiment, the upper movable electrode substrate 3
Although the PET film is used as the substrate constituting the above, the present invention is not limited to this, and for example, thin glass which has toughness and whose surface can be subjected to non-glare treatment or the like may be used. Further, although the glass plate is used as the substrate forming the lower fixed electrode substrate 4, the substrate is not limited to this and may be, for example, polycarbonate, acrylic or the like that can withstand the electrodeposition process. Further, either positive type or negative type may be used as the type of the electrodeposition photoresist, and a SiO ₂ film or a film composed of a composite of these metals may be used as the transparent electrode instead of the ITO film.

The method of manufacturing the upper movable electrode substrate 3 is as follows.
It may be manufactured by other processes without being limited to the above processes A to G.

Further, the present invention can be applied not only to the above analog type transparent touch panel but also to a matrix type transparent touch panel, for example.

In this case, in order to form a matrix pattern on one transparent electrode substrate, a positive electrodeposition photoresist is used, and a photomask corresponding to the above matrix pattern is used to perform exposure, development and electrode etching. To do. Then, the electrodeposited photoresist remaining on the transparent electrode substrate is exposed and developed using a photomask corresponding to the spacer pattern to form spacers made of the electrodeposited photoresist. As a result, the spacer is formed at a position facing the electrode pattern formed on the other transparent electrode substrate.

Conventionally, in such a matrix type transparent touch panel, in order to form an electrode pattern on a transparent electrode substrate, a usual photoresist having no electrodeposition property has been used. In this case, the film thickness of the photoresist applied on the transparent electrode substrate is about 0.5 to 2.0 μm, and this photoresist cannot be patterned as it is to be used as a spacer. It was necessary to form them.

However, in the above-mentioned manufacturing method, since the coating process of the photoresist used for forming the electrode pattern and the spacer is completed only once, the manufacturing process of the transparent touch panel can be shortened. Further, the presence of the formed spacer is less conspicuous than the spacer of acrylic / epoxy resin formed by the conventional screen printing due to the steepness of the cross section.

As a result, the visibility of the transparent touch panel can be improved and the operability can be improved.

[0045]

As described above, the transparent touch panel of claim 1 is a transparent touch panel in which a spacer is formed between two transparent electrode substrates by a photoresist, and the photoresist has an electrodeposition property. It is a composition.

As a result, the thickness of the applied photoresist can be increased and the size (dot angle) of the spacer can be reduced, so that the insulating state between the transparent electrode substrates when no input is made can be achieved. Can be kept good and the non-inputtable portion by the spacer can be made small.

Therefore, it is possible to improve the input resolution of the transparent touch panel and the input stability.

Further, in the method for manufacturing the transparent touch panel according to the second aspect, as described above, the step of applying the electrodeposition photoresist by the electrodeposition treatment on at least one of the transparent electrode substrates and applying the photoresist. The transparent electrode substrate includes at least a step of exposing and developing a pattern corresponding to the spacer portion.

As a result, a fine spacer having a large film thickness can be formed only by applying a photoresist and exposing / developing it without requiring a step for increasing the gap between the transparent electrode substrates. The manufacturing process can be shortened.

Therefore, it is possible to easily manufacture a transparent touch panel which has a good insulation state when no input is made and has high input stability.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a transparent touch panel according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the transparent touch panel shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a manufacturing process diagram of the transparent touch panel shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a plan view of a conventional transparent touch panel.

5 is a cross-sectional view of the transparent touch panel shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 transparent touch panel 2 transparent electrode 3 upper movable electrode substrate (transparent electrode substrate) 4 lower fixed electrode substrate (transparent electrode substrate) 5 electrodeposited photoresist

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A transparent touch panel having a spacer made of photoresist between two transparent electrode substrates, wherein the photoresist has electrodeposition. 2. A step of electrodepositing a photoresist having an electrodeposition property on at least one transparent electrode substrate and applying the photoresist, and forming a pattern corresponding to at least the spacer portion on the transparent electrode substrate on which the photoresist is applied. A method for manufacturing a transparent touch panel, which comprises at least a step of exposing and developing.