Apple Inc.

Kyung-Wook Kim

Shih Chang Chang

Byung Duk Yang

Chun-Yao Huang

Hiroshi Osawa

Shih-Chang Chang

Yu-Cheng Chen

John Z Zhong

Ming-Chin Hung

Szu-Hsien Lee

Kwang Soon Park

Cheng Kai Chen

Ting-Kuo Chang

Yong Kwan Kim

Cheng-Ho Yu

Young-Bae Park

Abbas Jamshidi Roudbari

Hirokazu Yamagata

Young Bae Park

Hao-Lin Chiu

Shang-Chih Lin

Christopher L Boitnott

Daisuke Nozu

Jungbae Kim

Supriya Goyal

Mohd Fadzli A Hassan

Ton-Yong Wang

Szuhsien Lee

Kuan-Ying Lin

An electronic device may include a display having an array of display pixels on a substrate. The display pixels may be organic light-emitting diode display pixels or display pixels in a liquid crystal display. In an organic light-emitting diode display, hybrid thin-film transistor structures may be formed that include semiconducting oxide thin-film transistors, silicon thin-film transistors, and capacitor structures. The capacitor structures may overlap the semiconducting oxide thin-film transistors. Organic light-emitting diode display pixels may have combinations of oxide and silicon transistors. In a liquid crystal display, display driver circuitry may include silicon thin-film transistor circuitry and display pixels may be based on oxide thin-film transistors. A single layer or two different layers of gate metal may be used in forming silicon transistor gates and oxide transistor gates. A silicon transistor may have a gate that overlaps a floating gate structure.

Displays with silicon and semiconducting oxide thin-film transistors

A touch screen. In some examples, the touch screen can comprise a first element coupled to a first sense connection, and a second element coupled to a second sense connection. In some examples, the first and second sense connections can be configured such that a load presented by the first sense connection and the first element is substantially equal to a load presented by the second sense connection and the second element. In some examples, the first and second sense connections can comprise detour routing configured such that a resistance of the first sense connection is substantially equal to a resistance of the second sense connection. In some examples, the first and second sense connections can be coupled to dummy routing configured such that a first capacitance presented by the first sense connection is substantially equal to a second capacitance presented by the second sense connection.

RC matching in a touch screen

A touch screen having layers. The touch screen can include a substrate upon which the layers of the touch screen are disposed, and a touch region including a touch pixel electrode, a first display sub-pixel and a second display sub-pixel. The touch screen can also include a sense connection coupled to touch sensing circuitry. An intermediate connection can be disposed between the touch pixel electrode and the sense connection, and can be coupled to the sense connection at the first display sub-pixel and the touch pixel electrode at the second display sub-pixel. In some examples, the sense connection can be disposed at least partially underneath a structure in the first display sub-pixel, such as a data line. In some examples, the intermediate connection can be comprised of a same material type as a structure in the first display sub-pixel, such as a gate line material.

Structure for pixelated self-capacitance

A display may have an array of pixels arranged in rows and columns. Each pixel may have a transistor for controlling the amount of output light associated with that pixel. The transistors may be thin-film transistors having active areas, first and second source-drain terminals, and gates. Gate lines may be used to distribute gate control signals to the gates of the transistors in each row. Data lines that run perpendicular to the gate lines may be used to distribute image data along columns of pixels. The gate lines may be connected to gate line extensions that run parallel to the data lines. The data lines may each overlap a respective one of the gate line extensions. Vias may be used to connect the gate line extensions to the gate lines. The gate line extensions may all have the same length.

Display having vertical gate line extensions and minimized borders

A display that contains a column spacer arrangement which takes advantage of a protrusion on a TFT substrate is provided. One set of column spacers is disposed on top of the protrusion, while a second set of column spacers of substantially the same height as the first set of column spacers are disposed throughout the display. In this way, the display is adequately protected against deformation from external forces while at the same maintaining enough room to allow for a liquid crystal to spread out during the manufacturing process.

Column spacer design for a display incorporating a third metal layer

A display may have a thin-film transistor layer and a color filter layer. The display may include light blocking structures formed on a transparent substrate. In one arrangement, a clear planarization layer may be formed over the light blocking structures. The thin-film transistor layer may be formed over the planarization layer. The color filter layer may be integrated with the thin-film transistor layer. At least light blocking structures and the planarization layer should be formed from high temperature resistance material. In another arrangement, the color filter layer may be formed on the light blocking structures. A clear planarization layer may then be formed over the color filter layer. The thin-film transistor layer may be formed on the planarization layer. In this arrangement, the color filter layer also needs to be formed from thermal resistance material.

Displays with flipped panel structures

A system and device for driving high resolution monitors while reducing artifacts thereon. Utilization of Z-inversion polarity driving techniques to drive pixels in a display reduces power consumption of the display but tends to generate visible horizontal line artifacts caused by capacitances present between the pixels and data lines of the display. By introducing a physical shield between the pixel and data line elements, capacitance therebetween can be reduced, thus eliminating the cause of the horizontal line artifacts. The shield may be a common voltage line (Vcom) of the display.

Pixel inversion artifact reduction

A liquid crystal display having an outer layer such as a thin-film transistor layer and an inner layer such as a color filter layer may be mounted in a metal device housing. Transparent conductive coating material may be formed on display layers. The transparent conductive coating material may include a layer on the upper surface of the thin-film transistor layer, a layer on the lower surface of the color filter layer, and an edge coating that extends between the upper surface layer and lower surface layer. Electrostatic discharge protection structures for the display may include a conductive elastomeric gasket that couples the upper surface layer to an inner surface of the housing, a conductive tape that couples the lower surface layer to the inner surface, and a conductive material on the inner surface that contacts the edge coating.

Electrostatic discharge protection structures for liquid crystal displays

A display may have an array of pixels controlled by display driver circuitry. The pixels may have pixel circuits. In liquid crystal display configurations, each pixel circuit may have an electrode that applies electric fields to an associated portion of a liquid crystal layer. In organic light-emitting diode displays, each pixel circuit may have a drive transistor that applies current to an organic light-emitting diode in the pixel circuit. The pixel circuits and display driver circuitry may have thin-film transistor circuitry that includes transistor such as silicon transistors and semiconducting-oxide transistors. Semiconducting-oxide transistors and silicon transistors may be formed on a common substrate. Semiconducting-oxide transistors may have polysilicon layers with doped regions that serve as gates. Semiconducting-oxide channel regions overlap the gates. Transparent conductive oxide and metal may be used to form source-drain terminals that are coupled to opposing edges of the semiconducting oxide channel regions.

Display with semiconducting oxide and polysilicon transistors

A display may have a thin-film transistor layer and color filter layer. The display may have an active area and an inactive border area. Light blocking structures in the inactive area may prevent stray backlight from a backlight light guide plate from leaking out of the display. The thin-film transistor layer may have a clear substrate, a patterned black masking layer on the clear substrate, a clear planarization layer on the black masking layer, and a layer of thin-film transistor circuitry on the clear planarization layer. The black masking layer may be formed from black photoimageable polyimide. The clear planarization layer may be formed from spin-on glass. The light blocking structures may include a first layer formed from a portion of the black masking layer and a second layer such as a layer of black tape on the underside of the color filter layer.

Border masking structures for liquid crystal display

A display may have a thin-film transistor layer formed from a layer of thin-film, transistor circuitry on a substrate. The thin-film transistor layer may overlap a color filter layer. A portion of the thin-film transistor layer may extend past the color filter layer to for a ledge region. Components such as a flexible printed circuit and a display driver integrated circuit may be mounted to the thin-film transistor layer in the ledge region. The components may have alignment marks. The thin-film transistor layer may have a black masking layer that is patterned to form openings for display pixels. In a border area of the display that overlaps the ledge region, the thin-film transistor layer may have alignment mark viewing windows. Alignment marks formed from black masking material in the windows may be aligned with respective alignment marks on the components.

Display with low reflectivity alignment structures

Liquid crystal displays with oxide-based thin-film transistors

A display may have a thin-film transistor (TFT) layer and color filter layer. Light blocking structures in an inactive area of the display may prevent stray backlight from leaking out of the display. The thin-film transistor layer may have a first substrate, a first black masking layer, a planarization layer, and a layer of TFT circuitry on the planarization layer. The color filter layer may have a second substrate and a second black masking layer on the second substrate. Light-cured sealant may be formed between the TFT layer and the color filter layer. Gaps may be formed in the second black masking layer to allow light to cure the sealant. At least a portion of the TFT circuitry may serve to block stray backlight penetrating through the gaps in the second black masking layer during normal operation of the display.

Growing community of inventors

Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Kyung-Wook Kim