Apple Inc.

Dong Zheng

Brian Richards Land

Venkata Siva Sunil Kumar Reddy Bommu

Serhan O Isikman

Kenneth John Vampola

David D Dashevsky

Anand K Chamakura

Stephen N Sweet

Tong Chen

Prashanth S Holenarsipur

Mark T Winkler

Eugene C Cheung

Tianbo Sun

Brian S Pearson

Steven Porter Hotelling

Warren S Rieutort-Louis

Koorosh Aflatooni

Zhang Jia

James Hollabaugh

Xianwei Zhao

Yuchi Che

Tingjun Xu

Guocheng Shao

Wenrui Cai

Joseph W Colosimo

Graeme M Williams

Ove Lyngnes

Christopher M Dodson

Xingxing Cai

Ali Motamed

Tsu-Hui Lin

Peng Zhao

Narendra S Mehta

Dianbo Guo

Michael D Eaton

Jihyun Cho

Mieczyslaw M Dabrowski

An input component for an electronic device configured to detect rotational and/or translational movement of a surface. In an implementation, the input component includes a movable input member with a shaft with a pattern disposed on its surface. A light-emitting element is positioned to direct light towards this pattern, a portion of which is thereafter reflected back. An imaging system is situated to capture the reflected light. The imaging system includes an array of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) operating in Geiger mode. This array is coupled with a counter circuit, which increments one or more values based on the SPAD array output. These values and corresponding SPAD locations within the array can be correlated to the spatial phase of the reflected light, which in turn can be converted to rotational or axial displacement of the movable input member.

Single photon avalanche diodes for rotational and translational input detection

An electronic device may include a proximity sensor for detecting whether an external object is in the vicinity of the device. The proximity sensor may have a light detector and a light source that can be reused for data communications. The light detector may be coupled to optical receiver circuitry, whereas the light source may be coupled to optical transmitter circuitry. The optical transmitter circuitry may include encoding circuits configured to convert electrical signals to optical signals. The optical receiver circuitry may include decoding circuits configured to convert optical signals to electrical signals. The optical signals can be encoded and decoded using pulse width modulation schemes or amplitude modulation schemes.

Proximity sensor based communications interface for electronic devices

A method of operating a laser includes generating a first signal having a first frequency, and generating a second signal having a second frequency. The first frequency varies in accord with an amplitude of a drive current provided to a laser. The method further includes incrementing or decrementing a count responsive to a relationship between the first frequency and the second frequency; determining the count satisfies a threshold count; and modifying operation of the laser when the count satisfies the threshold count.

Laser safety circuit providing frequency-based average current monitoring

An electronic device may be attached to an external item. The electronic device may include an optical identification sensor configured to sense a color-encoded tag in the external item when the item is attached to the device. The optical identification sensor may include a board layer, a protective filter layer, wall structures for supporting the protective filter layer on the board layer, a linear array of photodetectors disposed between the board layer and the protective filter layer, a field-of-view restriction filter interposed between the photodetectors and the protective filter layer, and a light source having multiple emitters for illuminating the color-encoded tag. The emitters may be activated sequentially to produce multiple images that are combined to reconstruct an accurate reading of the color-encoded tag, which can then be used to identify the type of external item currently attached to the electronic device.

Electronic devices with optical identification sensor

An electronic device may have an ambient light sensor for gathering ambient light measurements. The ambient light sensor may include multiple channels for measuring different wavelengths of ambient light. An additional, modified, channel may be formed in the ambient light sensor to measure radio-frequency signals that may interfere with the ambient light measurements due to electromagnetic interference. Alternatively, circuitry separate from the ambient light sensor, such as an antenna, may measure the radio-frequency signals. If the radio-frequency signals exceed a threshold, the ambient light sensor measurements taken in the presence of the radio-frequency signals may be discarded or corrected. If the radio-frequency signals do not exceed a threshold, the ambient light sensor measurements may be kept. Therefore, the ambient light measurements that are kept and relied upon by the electronic device may be free from electromagnetic interference.

Electronic devices with ambient light sensor radio-frequency interference correction

In some embodiments, a device includes a light-emitting display, and an optical emitter positioned behind the light-emitting display. The optical emitter is configured to emit light through the light-emitting display. A processor is configured to synchronize a first illumination timing of the optical emitter and a second illumination timing of the light-emitting display. In some embodiments, a device includes an optical transceiver processor and a display processor. The display processor is configured to output timing information to a light-emitting display and to the optical transceiver processor, and the optical transceiver processor is configured to cause an optical transceiver to emit or receive light in synchronization with the timing information output by the display processor.

Display-synchronized optical emitters and transceivers

An optical sensing system includes a transmitter side and a receiver side, and is configured to be positioned below a display of an electronic device. The transmitter side includes a light emitter, a temperature sensor, and a photodiode. The receiver side includes a photodiode and a temperature sensor. The optical sensing system includes an application-specific integrated circuit that leverages the temperature sensors, the photodiodes, and one or more signal filters such as a high-pass filter to perform multiple field calibrations of the optical sensing system, thereby improving accuracy and precision thereof.

Self-calibrating optical transceiver system with reduced crosstalk sensitivity for through-display proximity sensing

An electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels configured to display images for a user. The electronic device may have an ambient light sensor for gathering ambient light information. The ambient light sensor may be at least partially covered by the display. The ambient light sensor may be switched into use during blanking periods when a portion of the display overlapping with the display is temporarily turned off. The ambient light sensor may include a photodetector, a first stage with an amplifier, first and second capacitors selectively coupled across the amplifier, and a second accumulation stage. During blanking time, the first capacitor may integrate photodetector current. During non-blanking, the charge stored in the first capacitor may be transferred to the second accumulation stage while the second capacitor applies an offset voltage to the photodetector to prevent undesired charge injection into the photodetector.

Electronic devices having ambient light sensors with hold function

An electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels that display images for a user. The electronic device may have an ambient light sensor for gathering ambient light information. A subset of the pixels in the array of pixels may overlap the ambient light sensor so that ambient light passing through the subset of pixels may be measured. Each pixel may have an emission enable transistor coupled in series with a light-emitting diode. Control circuitry in the electronic device may disable the subset of pixels to reduce stray light during ambient light measurements while enabling remaining pixels in the array of pixels to display an image. Ambient light sensor circuitry may gather ambient light sensor measurements over one or more periods by using transfer transistors to transfer change from the photodetectors to charge storage capacitors formed from floating diffusions in a common substrate.

Electronic devices with ambient light sensors and emissive displays

An electronic device may have a housing in which a display is mounted. The display may have an active area in which images are displayed by an array of pixels and an inactive area that is free of pixels. A color ambient light sensor may make color and luminance measurements on ambient light received through an ambient light sensor window in the inactive area of the display or elsewhere in the electronic device. The color ambient light sensor may have color ambient light sensor elements of different colors. The ambient light sensor elements may extend in a row along an edge of the display or may have other configurations. Analog-to-digital converter circuitry and switching circuitry may gather color ambient light sensor measurements and measurements indicative of whether or not the color ambient light sensor has been obscured by an external object from the light sensor elements.

Electronic device with obstruction-sensing color ambient light sensor

An electronic device may be provided with a color ambient light sensor. The color ambient light sensor may be used to measure an ambient light spectrum over a wavelength range of interest. Control circuitry in the electronic device can take actions based on the measured ambient light spectrum such as adjusting the brightness and color cast of content on a display. A display may have a display cover layer. The color ambient light sensor can be mounted under the display cover layer and may receive ambient light through the display cover layer. The color ambient light sensor may have a tunable wavelength filter such as an electrically adjustable Fabry-Perot resonator. A light collimator may be interposed between the display cover layer and the Fabry-Perot resonator to collimate ambient light that is passed to the Fabry-Perot resonator. A light detector measures the light passing through the Fabry-Perot resonator.

Color ambient light sensor with tunable filter

An electronic device may be provided with a display mounted in a housing. The display may have an array of pixels that form an active area and may have an inactive area that runs along an edge of the active area. An opaque layer may be formed on an inner surface of a display cover layer in the inactive area of the display or may be formed on another transparent layer in the electronic device. An optical component window may be formed from the opening and may be aligned with an ambient light sensor such as a color ambient light sensor. The color ambient light sensor may have an infrared-blocking filter to block infrared light such as infrared light emitted by an infrared-light-emitting diode in the device. A light diffuser layer, light guide, and other structures may also be included in the ambient light sensor.

Electronic devices with ambient light sensors

An electronic device may be provided with a display. An opaque layer may be formed on an inner surface of a display cover layer in an inactive area of the display. An optical component window may be formed from the opening and may be aligned with an ambient light sensor such as a color ambient light sensor. The color ambient light sensor may have photodetectors on a light detector integrated circuit. Electrostatic shielding may be incorporated into the color ambient light sensor to prevent perturbations in the output of the color ambient light sensor due to the presence of electrostatic charge in the vicinity of the optical component window. The shielding may include a grounded shield layer on a surface of an ambient light sensor support structure that faces the display cover layer and may include a transparent shield layer overlapping the photodetectors.

Electronic devices having ambient light sensors with electrostatic shields

An electronic device may be provided with a display mounted in a housing. The display may have an array of pixels that form an active area and may have an inactive area that runs along an edge of the active area. A color ambient light sensor may gather ambient light measurements through a window in an opaque masking layer in the inactive area. The color ambient light sensor may have photodiodes with different spectral sensitivities and may have a dark current photodiode that is insensitive to light. A set of analog-to-digital converters may be used to digitize photodiode signals from the photodiodes. A switch array may be used to distribute signals from the photodiodes to each of the analog-to-digital converters. This allows the output of each photodiode to be averaged over multiple analog-to-digital converters to remove any impact of variations in performance between converters.

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Los Altos, CA, United States of America

Dong Zheng