• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.259-264
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• 2009

High level quality control is required for mobile TFT-LCD modules which are frequently used for fine observation. However, quantitative quality control is difficult. Defect inspection using naked eyes makes irregular inspection results. This paper developed desk type defect inspection equipment for mobile TFT-LCD modules using the same inspection criterion with that of naked eyes. From experiments using this equipments, possibilities of standardization in defect inspection equipment for mobile TFT-LCD modules are presented.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.283-289
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• 2004

The number of pixel defects including bright and black dots on a panel is one of the critical factors determining the quality of TFT-LCD. Since pixel defects on the TFT-LCD panels are sometimes unavoidable, manufacturers have to inspect the panels so that any panel with an unacceptable number of defects will not be delivered to the buyers. However, the buyers demand for the manufacturers to meet different pixel defects tolerances (acceptable number of pixel defects on a TFT-LCD panel) around central(tight) and peripheral(loose) inspection zones. The disagreement in quality standard among different buyers also cause confusions in screening non-confirmative products and unstable yield of production. Few research has focused on the effects of defect locations on a TFT-LCD panel on their detection probabilities and the rational division of defect inspection zones. In this research, experiments were conducted to find the detection probabilities of black dot defects with respect to their varying locations on a TFT-LCD. It is proposed a rational division of inspection zone on a TFT-LCD panel on the basis of detection probabilities of the defects. With these division of inspection zones and the mean defect detection probability within each zone, it is expected to establish a more reasonable pixel defects tolerances.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.444-452
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• 2008

This paper presents an overall image processing approach of defect inspection of patterned TFT-LCD panels for the real manufacturing process. A prototype of AOI(Automatic Optical Inspection) system which is composed of air floating stage and multi line scan cameras is developed. Adjacent pattern comparison algorithm is enhanced and used for pattern elimination to extract defects in the patterned image of TFT-LCD panels. New region merging algorithm which is based on border expansion is proposed to identify defects from the pattern eliminated defect image. Experimental results show that a developed AOI system has acceptable performance and the proposed algorithm reduces environmental effects and processing time effectively for applying to the real manufacturing process.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.148-154
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• 2009

In recent days, large-sized flat-panel display (FPD) has been increasingly applied to computer monitors and TVs. Mura defects, appearing as low contrast or non-uniform brightness region, sometimes occur in manufacturing of the Thin-Film Transistor Liquid-Crystal Displays (TFT-LCD). Implementation of automatic Mura inspection methods is necessary for TFT-LCD production. Various existing Mura detection methods based on regression diagnostics, surface fitting and data transformation have been presented with good performance. This paper proposes an efficient Mura detection method that is based on a regression diagnostics using studentized residuals for automatic Mura inspection of FPD. The input image is estimated by a linear model and then the studentized residuals are calculated for filtering Mura regions. After image dilation, the proposed threshold is determined for detecting the non-uniform brightness region in TFT-LCD by means of monitoring the every pixel in the image. The experimental results obtained from several test images are used to illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method for Mura detection.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.204-214
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• 2012

This paper proposes an image segmentation for a vision-based automated defect inspection system on surface image of TFT-LCD(Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display) panels. TFT-LCD images have non-uniform brightness, which is hard to finding defective regions. Although there are several methods or proposed algorithms, it is difficult to divide the defect with high reliability because of non-uniform properties in the image. Kamel and Zhao disclosed a method which based on logical stage algorithm for segmentation of graphics and character. This method is a one of the local segmentation method that has a advantage. It is that characters and graphics are well segmented in an image which has non-uniform property. As TFT-LCD panel image has a same property, so this paper proposes new algorithm to segment regions of defects based on Kamel and Zhao's algorithm. Our algorithm has an advantage that there are a few ghost objects around the defects. We had experiments to prove performance in real TFT-LCD panel images, and comparing with the FFT(Fast Fourier Transform) method which is used a bandpass filter.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.525-534
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• 2013

Recently, mura defect inspection techniques are receiving attention in LCD production procedure since demands of TFT-LCD are growing. In this paper, we propose an automatic mura defect inspection method using gabor wavelet transform and DCT. First, we generate a reference panel image using DCT based method. For original panel image and generated reference panel image, we apply a gabor wavelet transform to eliminate texture information in images. Then, we extract mura defect regions from the difference image between gabor wavelet transform image of original panel and generated reference panel image. Finally, all mura defect regions are quantified to detect accurate mura defects. Experimental results show that our method is more accurate and efficient than previous methods.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.432-437
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• 2008

This paper proposes a defect cell extraction algorithm for TFT-LCD auto-repair system. Auto defect search algorithm and automatic defect cell extraction method are very important for TFT-LCD auto repair system. In the previous literature[1], we proposed an automatic visual inspection algorithm of TFT-LCD. Based on the inspected information(defect size and defect axis, if defect exists) by the automatic search algorithm, defect cells should be extracted from the input image for the auto repair system. For automatic extraction of defect cells, we used a novel block matching algorithm and a simple filtering process in order to find a given reference point in the LCD cell. The proposed defect cell extraction algorithm can be used in all kinds of TFT-LCD devices by changing a stored template which includes a given reference point. Various experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.07e
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• pp.1783-1786
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• 2003

In this paper, an automated line-defect detection method for TFT-LCD panel is presented. A DFB(Directional Filter Bank) and line-projection method are used to find line-defect which is one of the major defects occurred in TFT-LCD panel. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm gave promising results for applying automated inspection technique for TFT-LCD panel.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.08a
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• pp.286-289
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• 2007

We have developed an automated circuit defect inspection and repair method that can be used to improve the yield ratio of TFT-LCD. The method focuses on correcting resist patterns after the development process to ensure shape regularity. We built a prototype system and confirmed that the method is valid.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.784-793
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• 2012

Defects of TFT-LCD is detected by thresholding the difference image between the input image and template one because LCD panel has its inherent patterns. However, the pitch corresponding to pattern period is gradually changed according to the distance from the center of camera due to geometric distortion of camera characteristics. This paper presents a method to detect defects through comparing the pitch area with neighbor pitch areas where the perspective transform is performed with the extracted features to correct the distortion. The experimental results show that the performance of the proposed method is very effective for real data.