Blocked Nozzles Monitoring System

Some critical FPD manufacturing processes, such as OLED inkjet printing or photoresist coating, can cause leakage of material onto pressure/vacuum (PV) handling stages. Leakage of materials may cause blockage in PV nozzles, reducing manufacturing system performance and affecting substrate floating height precision. In extreme cases, blockages may cause direct contact between the substrate and the stage surface, damaging the substrate.
In short, blocked PV nozzles lead to increased line downtime, higher maintenance costs, and reduced production yields.
Introducing the Blocked Nozzles Monitoring System from CoreFlow.
The Blocked Nozzles Monitoring System tracks the air supply in the stage’s process area, raising an alert indication when a blockage is detected. The indication allows the production team to pinpoint a blockage event within one glass substrate cycle time, significantly reducing troubleshooting time and increasing production yields.
The monitoring system is compatible with CoreFlow PV air-floating and vacuum stages and can be integrated into coating systems, inspection systems, and inkjet printers. It is scalable to any substrate size and supports any nozzle pattern distribution – including orthogonal in two axes, staggered distribution in one axis, axis-symmetric, or random distribution. The system can be configured to monitor all vacuum nozzles in the system or a subset of them.