Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Yuji Otake

Seiichi Miyahara

Takahiro Fukagawa

Tetsuya Tanaka

Masayuki Mantani

Minoru Murakami

Kimiyuki Yamasaki

Michinori Tomomatsu

Takaaki Sakaue

Kunihiko Tokita

Seiko Abe

Seikoh Abe

Takashi Katsuki

Akira Maeda

Seikou Abe

Masafumi Nishida

Hirotoshi Sakamoto

Toshitsugu Oba

An electrode formation method for a solar cell to form an electrode of a base member, includes a screen printing process and a baking process. The screen printing process includes: mounting a metal mask on a surface of the base member, wherein the metal mask includes a covering portion configured to cover a part of a surface of the base member, opening portions configured to allow parts of the base member to be exposed therefrom, and bridge portions disposed along a direction intersecting with a longitudinal direction of circuit patterns between the opening portions; and supplying a paste to an upper surface of the metal mask by a squeegee head of a cartridge type, while relatively sliding a squeegee on the upper surface of the metal mask such that the squeegee travels relatively to the metal mask. In the baking process, the paste is baked to form the electrode.

Electrode formation system for solar cell and electrode formation method for solar cell

In an electronic component mounting method of mounting electronic components on a substrate by means of soldering by using an electronic component mounting system having a screen printing apparatus and an electronic component mounting apparatus connected to each other to manufacture a mounting substrate, prior to a screen printing process, the positions of pattern holes provided in a screen mask are measured to calculate mask aperture data, and the coordinates of a mounting position when a component mounting operation is performed by a mounting head are calculated, on the basis of the mask aperture data. In this way, it is possible to calculate the positional deviation of solder, without measuring the position of solder after printing whenever the solder is printed, and to prevent defects in mounting due to the positional deviation of solder, which results in high productivity.

Electronic component mounting system and electronic component mounting method

To provide a printing inspection apparatus and a printing inspection method enabling an optimal inspection mode in which a balance is kept between the improvement of production efficiency and the securing of a printing accuracy. In a printing inspection for inspecting a printing state of cream solder on a substrate after screen printing, inspection data is generated by dividing unit shape and position data, indicating the shapes and the positions of element solder print portions to be printed on electrodes provided on a circuit forming surface of the substrate to be used to bond electronic components, into data groups according to a grouping condition chosen in response to an inspection mode. A go/no-go judgment at the time of inspection is made per data group, and a judgment result is displayed for each data group. It is thus possible to choose an optimal inspection mode flexibly in response to the characteristics of a substrate as the subject to be inspected.

Printing inspection apparatus, printing inspection method, printing inspection data generating apparatus, and printing inspection data generating method

In a screen printing apparatus for contacting a lower surface of a mask plate with a substrate and moving a squeezee in a sliding motion on an upper surface of the mask plate thereby printing a paste onto the substrate, mask bend preventing members are mounted on conveying rails at front and rear parts of clamp members clamping the substrate in a Y-direction, and, at a mask separating operation after printing, the substrate is lowered while the lower surface of the mask plate is supported by the clamp members and the mask bend preventing members. Thus the mask separation can be achieved in a state where the mask plate is supported from below on four sides of the substrate and is thus prevented from a downward bending, and a satisfactory mask separating property can be ensured over the entire substrate.

Screen printing apparatus and screen printing method

In a screen printer for printing paste to the substrate through a pattern hole by abutting a mask plate on the substrate, the end face of a side end portion of the substrate is nipped and held from its both sides by a clamper. A warp correcting portion mounting a warp-correcting member constructed by a plate-shaped resilient metal is arranged in the clamper. When the substrate held to a substrate holding portion of a Z-axis table is clamped, a free end portion of the warp correcting member is abutted on the upper face side of the side end portion of the substrate, and the warp deformation of the substrate is corrected by pressing the free end portion downward. Thus, the warp deformation of the substrate is corrected by a simple and cheap mechanism, and the clamp state can be reliably held.

Screen printer

A cream solder cartridge used in a screen printing apparatus which prints cream solder on a board through pattern holes by sliding, on a mask plate, a closed squeegee that is stored with cream solder inside is composed of a long and narrow concave portion made of a flexible film-like material, a brim portion projecting from the outer periphery of the concave portion, and a film-like cover sheet that is stuck to the brim portion and thereby closes the opening of the concave portion. This configuration makes it possible to supply paste at a low cost and to perform a viscosity adjustment easily by externally stirring the paste accommodated inside.

Paste container for screen printing and screen printing apparatus

It is an object of the invention to provide a method for forming printing inspection data in which the use of a mask plate makes it possible to simply and efficiently form the inspecting data. In a method for forming printing inspection data for obtaining mask opening data from an image got by picking-up the image of a mask plate to form the inspecting data, when an image pick-up visual fieldis sequentially moved to visual field positions having a grid-shaped arrangement to obtain a plurality of images, if incomplete opening parts(X) and (Y) in which parts of the opening parts protrude are detected, ranges BXand BYwhich are excluded from an object of data in this image are determined based on these sizes BYand BY. When the image pick-up visual field is moved to an adjacent visual field position, the image pick-up visual field is overlapped on the adjacent image pick-up visual field by BX, BYto include these opening parts in the adjacent image pick-up visual field. Thus, an inconvenience that the opening parts protrude in the image is eliminated so that the inspecting data can be simply and efficiently formed.

Method for forming printing inspection data

A screen printing apparatus and method in that in the print parameter setting process for setting print parameters including a squeegee movement speed, a printing pressure, and plate release conditions, a squeegee movement speed at which the squeegee is to be moved is set at the first step, then a printing pressure for realizing a desired cream solder charging state is set at the second step, and then plate release conditions for realizing a desired cream solder transfer state is set at the third step. Therefore, the print parameter setting process can be performed according to an efficient processing procedure and trial-and-error-based backward work can be avoided. Print parameters can be set quickly and properly for a wide range of solder types.

In a screen printing method of bringing a mask plate into contact with a substrate to print solder cream through a pattern hole on the substrate, a plate separating operation of separating the substrate from the mask plate after a squeegeeing step in which the solder cream is filled into the pattern hole comprises an operation pattern in which acceleration and deceleration pattern in which a descending speed is accelerated up to an upper limit speed and thereafter decelerated up to a lower limit speed is repeated plural times. Further, an initial upper limit speed in start of the plate separating operation is set higher than the succeeding upper limit speeds, whereby viscosity of the solder cream into the pattern hole in start of the plate separating operation is lowered, and the mask plate can be separated with a high accuracy throughout the entire range of the substrate.

Screen printing method including variable speed plate separating operation

In a screen-printing apparatus for printing creamy solder paste on a substrate by attaching a screen mask to the substrate, a predetermined measuring position of the mechanisms in the screen-printing apparatus is measured three-dimensionally by a three-dimensional measuring device. Based on the measured result, a predetermined measuring point on an object to be measured is determined on a position relative to the origin of the mechanical coordinate system in the screen-printing apparatus, and the origin position on a control program can be set. As a result, machine adjusting operation and teaching operation in the screen-printing apparatus can be simplified with high accuracy.

Apparatus and method of screen printing

A screen-printing apparatus for printing creamy solder paste on a substrate by attaching a screen mask to the substrate. A laser-measuring device mounted in the apparatus measures the top surface of the screen mask at a printing position and the top of the substrate at a substrate-measurement position by three-dimensional measurement, and detects a shape of the substrate or the screen mask, and determines whether or not they are acceptable. After screen printing is completed, the substrate and the screen mask undergo a printing inspection where their shapes are inspected. This provides not only inspection data of the printing results but also data for identifying the causes of print failures. As a result, the screen-printing apparatus, which has high-printing accuracy and can prevent printing failures from occurring, is provided.

A screen printing apparatus in which a squeegee head is moved on a mask plate thereby to print paste on a substrate through pattern holes , slide contact portions A and B form respectively front and rear walls in the squeegeeing direction of a printing space which reserves cream solder therein and makes the cream solder contact with the surface of the mask plate through an opening portion formed at the lower surface thereof. Each of the slide-contact portions is configured by a partition plate for partitioning between the printing space and the outside and a filling block having a filling surface which forms an acute angle with respect to the surface of the mask plate . In the squeegeeing operation, the filling surface rolls the cream solder . Thus, the cream solder can be filled into the pattern holes without pressurizing the cream solder, and a problem caused by the leakage of the cream solder can be eliminated.

Growing community of inventors

Fukuoka, Japan

Yuji Otake