The application of micro-groove machining for the mold of PDP barrier ribs

A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display utilizing the light emission that is produced by discharge of gas. Barrier ribs of the PDP separating each sub-pixel prevent optical and electrical cross-talk from the adjacent sub-pixels. The mold for forming barrier ribs has been newly researched to overcome the disadvantages of conventional manufacturing process such as screen printing, sand-blasting, and photosensitive glass methods. A mold for PDP barrier ribs has stripes of micro-grooves transferring strips of glass–material wall. In this paper, stripes in the form of grooves of width 48 μm, depth 124 μm, pitch 274 μm were acquired by machining WC material with a dicing saw blade. The maximum roughness of the bottom and side-wall of the grooves was 120 and 287 nm, respectively. The maximum tilt angle caused by the difference between the upper and lower-most width was 2°. The maximum radius of curvature of bottom was 7.75 μm. These results meet the specification for barrier ribs of a 50 in. (1.27 m) XGA PDP.