The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 27, 1999
Filed:
Dec. 20, 1996
David J McCulloch, Redhill, GB;
U.S. Philips Corporation, New York, NY (US);
Abstract
In the manufacture of an electronic device comprising thin-film circuitry, a semiconductor film (1) on a polymer substrate (2) is subjected to a laser treatment, for example laser crystallisation, with a laser beam (10). The beam is reflected by the film (1). Significant non-uniformities in the laser treatment are found to occur due to a local overheating effect if the reflected laser beam 10b impinges again on the heated area of the film (1). Thus, the invention identifies a particularly acute problem which arises when the device substrate (2) is of a heat-distortable polymer material in that the substrate (2) may experience temporarily a concave distortion at an area where the semiconductor film (1) on the substrate (2) is heated by the incident laser beam (10). The beam is focused as well as reflected by the concave distortion in the substrate (2). Although the film (1) is under a window (22) of the treatment cell (20), this focused and reflected laser beam (10a) is prevented from being reflected again onto the same area of the film (1), by tilting the window (22) and/or the film/substrate (1,2) at the area of the concave distortion at an angle .theta. so as to be inclined with respect to one another along the path of the beam (10).