Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Displays, Ltd.

Mikio Hongo

Tateoki Miyauchi

Mutsuko Hatano

Akira Shimase

Hiroshi Yamaguchi

Akio Yazaki

Takahiko Takahashi

Makoto Ohkura

Satoshi Haraichi

Katsuro Mizukoshi

Masaaki Okunaka

Shinya Yamaguchi

Takeshi Noda

Toshihiko Nakata

Sachio Uto

Mineo Nomoto

Keiya Saito

Shigenobu Maruyama

Masao Mitani

Fumikazu Itoh

Takao Kawanabe

Katsurou Mizukoshi

Hiroshi Kikuchi

Yukio Takasaki

Ryohei Satoh

Mitsuharu Tai

Kaoru Katayama

Hiroshi Saito

Takahiro Kamo

Takashi Kamimura

Koyo Morita

Haruhisa Sakamoto

Isao Tanabe

Michinobu Mizumura

Masato Ito

Takanori Ninomiya

Hiroshi Fukuda

Takuo Kaitoh

Takeshi Sato

Toshiaki Masuhara

Shinichi Kato

Eiji Matsuzaki

Shinichi Kazui

Takuo Tamura

Kazuo Mera

Kazushi Yoshimura

Yasuhiro Koizumi

Kiyoshi Matsui

Masatomo Terakado

Kaoru Yamada

Minoru Suzuki

Satoru Todoroki

Hideo Matsuzaki

Funikazu Itoh

Shuzo Sano

Shyuzo Sano

Hideaki Shimmoto

Fumikazu Ito

Junichi Nakabayashi

Morio Inoue

A method of forming a semiconductor thin film includes a highly sensitive inspection method for detecting lateral crystals and a crystallizing method. In the crystallizing method, the time-based pulse width of a laser SXL is modulated and an approximate band-like crystal silicon film SPSI is formed in a desired region while scanning the substrate SUBbidirectionally in the X and &#x2212;X directions. In the inspection method, an inspection beam PROis irradiated to the substrate just after the laser SXL is turned off. A protrusion TOKI will be formed on the silicon film portion where the laser SXL is turned off if the state of the silicon film is that of a lateral crystal SPSI. The inspection beam PROis scattered by the protrusion TOKI and observed by a detector. If the state of the silicon film is granular crystal GGSI or aggregated film AGSI, such a protrusion TOKI is not observed.

Semiconductor thin film manufacturing method

A TFT device having a pixel portion and a driving circuit portion formed on a glass substrate; wherein at least the active layer (active region) of a transistor constituting said driving circuit comprises polycrystalline silicon including crystals that do not have crystal grain boundaries which cross the direction of current flow.

Method of manufacturing display device

In crystallization of a silicon film by annealing using a linear-shaped laser beam having a width of the short axis of the beam is ununiform, the profile (intensity distribution) of the laser beam is evaluated and the results are fed back to a condition of oscillating the laser beam or an optical condition for projecting the laser beam onto the silicon film, whereby a display device comprising a high-quality crystalline silicon film is manufactured. The energy distribution of the linear-shaped laser beam is determined by a detector type CCD camera which is moved stepwise in the directions in which its long axis and short axis extend, respectively, and a value obtained by dividing an accumulated intensity E in the long axis direction obtained by accumulating the detected signal in the direction parallel to the short axis by the square root of the width W of the short axis of the above linear-shaped laser beam in each position of the long axis: E/&#x221a;{square root over ( )}(W), is determined in all the positions of a cross section of the linear-shaped laser beam to evaluate the above intensity distribution.

Manufacturing method of display device

A method of manufacturing a display device to improve the quality of a polycrystal silicon upon dehydrogenating and polycrystallizing an amorphous silicon at the outside of a display region of a substrate, by forming a plurality of pixels having TFT devices using an amorphous silicon in the display region of the substrate, and forming a plurality of driving circuits having semiconductor devices using a polycrystal silicon at the outside of the display region, the method including irradiation of a first continuous oscillation laser only to the amorphous silicon in the region for forming the driving circuit and the peripheral region thereof to conduct dehydrogenation and then irradiation of a second continuous oscillation region only to the dehydrogenated region to polycrystallize the amorphous silicon, wherein the region to which the first continuous oscillation laser is irradiated is wider than the region to which the second continuous oscillation laser is irradiated.

In crystallization of a silicon film by annealing with a linear-shaped laser beam having an ununiform width of the short axis of the beam, the profile (intensity distribution) of the laser beam is evaluated, and the result is fed back to an oscillating condition of the laser beam or an optical condition which projects this onto the silicon film, whereby a display device comprising a high-quality crystalline silicon film is produced. In the present invention, (1) the energy distribution of the linear-shaped laser beam is measured by a detector type CCD camera moved stepwise in the directions that its long axis and short axis extend, respectively, (2) a value obtained by dividing an accumulated intensity E in the long axis direction obtained by accumulating the detected signals in a direction parallel to the short axis by the square root of the width W of the short axis of the linear-shaped laser beam in each position in the long axis: E/&#x221a;{square root over ( )}(W), is determined in all the positions of a cross section of the linear-shaped laser beam. Since a laser power which is suitable for lateral crystal growth of the silicon film has a close correlation with E/&#x221a;{square root over ( )}(W), this value is used as an evaluation result mentioned above in the present invention.

A semiconductor thin film is manufactured by scanning laser light or a substrate onto an arbitrary region of the semiconductor thin film and irradiating a laser thereon. The semiconductor thin film is formed by the substantially belt-shaped crystal being crystallized such that crystalline grains grow in the scanning direction, on the substrate, on XY coordinates where value x of beam size W (&#x3bc;m) of the laser light measured in substantially the same direction as the scanning direction is defined as X axis, and where value y of scanning velocity Vs (m/s) is defined as Y axis, the crystallization processing is performed within a region where all of the following conditions hold: condition 1: the beam size W is larger than wavelength of the laser beam, condition 2: the scanning velocity Vs is smaller than upper-limit of crystal growth speed, and condition 3: x&#xd7;(1/y)&#x3c;25 &#x3bc;s.

Manufacturing method of semiconductor film and image display device

A laser beam temporally modulated in amplitude by a modulator and shaped into a long and narrow shape by a beam shaper is rotated around the optical axis of an image rotator inserted between the beam shaper and a substrate. Thus, the longitudinal direction of the laser beam having the long and narrow shape is rotated around the optical axis on the substrate. In order to perform annealing in a plurality of directions on the substrate, the laser beam shaped into the long and narrow shape is rotated on the substrate while a stage mounted with the substrate is moved only in two directions, that is, X- and Y-directions. In such a manner, the substrate can be scanned at a high speed with a continuous wave laser beam modulated temporally in amplitude and shaped into a long and narrow shape, without rotating the substrate. Thus, a semiconductor film can be annealed.

Laser annealing apparatus and annealing method of semiconductor thin film using the same

Arrangements (e.g., methods) for manufacturing a display device, including irradiating an amorphous semiconductor film formed on a substrate with an excimer laser beam to convert the amorphous semiconductor film into a polycrystalline semiconductor film; and irradiating predetermined areas of the polycrystalline semiconductor film intermittently with a continuous wave laser beam while a position of the substrate with respect to the continuous wave laser beam is scanned, crystal grains larger than those of the polycrystalline semiconductor film other than the predetermined areas are formed in each of the predetermined areas locally in the polycrystalline semiconductor film, wherein first thin film transistors are formed in the predetermined areas while second thin film transistors are formed in the polycrystalline semiconductor film other than the predetermined areas thereof.

When any of pixels is not lit in an organic EL display having an organic EL layer between a first electrode and a second electrode, an organic layer of the pixel is observed. If the organic layer of the pixel contains foreign matter, the second electrode is separated into a region in contact with the foreign matter and a region not in contact with both the contact region and the foreign matter. Thus, not-lit display regions are reduced as less as possible, making it possible to manufacture an organic EL display excellent in display performance.

Method for manufacturing an organic electroluminescence display

A laser beam is selectively directed to an amorphous silicon film of a pixel portion on an active-matrix substrate of a display device to modify the amorphous silicon film into a polysilicon film. Pixel circuits such as thin film transistors are formed on the modified polysilicon film. Thus, it is possible to realize remarkably economically the display device provided with the active-matrix substrate having the high performance thin film transistor circuits.

Active matrix display device with active element including a semiconductor film formed of an aggregate of single crystals each extending in the same direction

A mechanism for always measuring the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam and displacement of the optical axis of the laser beam is provided so that a measured signal is processed when the laser beam incident on a laser beam shaping optical element is out of a predetermined condition. The shape, diameter and incidence position of the laser beam incident on the laser beam shaping optical element are always kept in the predetermined condition by a spatial filter disposed at the position of a focal point of lenses forming a beam expander disposed in the optical axis, on the basis of a result of the signal processing. In this manner, silicon thin films uniform in crystallinity can be formed stably with a high yield on an insulating substrate which forms display panels of flat panel display devices.

Apparatus for manufacturing flat panel display devices

An amorphous silicon film on an insulating substrate portion to be formed as an individual display panel in a large-sized insulating substrate is irradiated with a continuous-wave (CW) solid-state laser beam condensed linearly, while being scanned therewith at a fixed speed in the width direction of the condensed laser beam. A pixel portion and a peripheral circuit portion in the same insulating substrate portion are irradiated with the laser beam temporally modulated to have a power density high enough to provide predetermined crystallinity. The amorphous silicon film is transformed into a silicon film having crystallinity corresponding to performance required for thin film transistors to be built in each of the pixel portion and the peripheral circuit portion. In such a manner, a thin film transistor circuit having optimum crystallinity required in the pixel or peripheral circuit portion can be obtained while high throughput is kept. Thus, a product having good display features as a display panel can be provided inexpensively.

Display panel and method for manufacturing the same

The whole surface of an insulating substrate having an amorphous silicon film formed thereon is scanned/irradiated with a solid-state pulsed laser beam shaped linearly or rectangularly, to form a uniform fine poly-crystalline silicon film for forming a pixel region. The periphery of the pixel region is scanned/irradiated with a time-modulated continuous-wave solid-state laser beam formed linearly. Thus, a peripheral circuit region including a drive circuit is formed as a poly-crystalline silicon film with crystals growing up in the scanning direction. Pixel portion thin film transistors are produced in the uniform fine poly-crystalline silicon film, while a drive circuit or an interface circuit is produced in the peripheral circuit region. One of substrates of a display panel is formed thus. A display panel including transistors with uniform properties in the pixel portion and transistors with excellent properties in the peripheral circuit portion including the drive circuit is obtained.

Method and apparatus for manufacturing display panel

The active layer (active region) of the thin-film transistor making up the driver circuit is obtained by reformation implemented by scanning the continuous-wave laser light, condensed into a linear form or a rectangle form extremely longer in the longitudinal direction than in the transverse direction, along a given direction crossing the longitudinal direction. This is made up of a poly silicon film containing crystal grains having no grain boundaries crossing the direction of current flow, that is, a band-like polycrystalline silicon film. As a result, it is possible to implement a display device having stable and high quality active elements outside the display region on the insulating substrate.

Display device, process of fabricating same, and apparatus for fabricating same

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Yokohama, Japan

Mikio Hongo