Apple Inc.

Other

Lightwave Microsystems Corporation

Lili Huang

John Z Zhong

Shih Chang Chang

Richard M Mank

Seung Jae Hong

Steve Porter Hotelling

Steven Porter Hotelling

Martin Paul Grunthaner

Frank Wayne Harris

Sunggu Kang

Lynn Richard Youngs

Dong Zhang

Stephen Z D Cheng

Siddharth Mohapatra

Ken G Purchase

Martin McKenzie

Jason J Ge

Tongbi T Jiang

Cheng Kai Chen

Matthew Emanuel Last

Kuo-Hua Sung

Masato Kuwabara

Casey J Feinstein

Yanfeng Chen

Ralph E Kauffman

Sueng Jae Hong

A battery assembly can be formed on a base layer provided on a substrate, with a thin film battery stack including an anode layer, a cathode layer, and an electrolyte layer between the anode and cathode layers. The thin film battery stack can be attached to a pattern film layer with holes for electrical connection to the anode and cathode layers.

Thin film pattern layer battery systems

A touch sensor panel having column traces that can terminate at a short edge of a substrate is disclosed. A flex circuit can have a wide flex circuit portion extending the full width of the short edge that can bond to the bond pads on the top side of the substrate. It can be undesirable to have column traces (e.g., sense lines) and row traces (e.g., drives lines) cross over each other at the bonding area, and it can also be undesirable to have bond pads formed on directly opposing sides of the substrate because such areas can generate unwanted stray mutual capacitance and coupling of signals. Row traces can be routed to the same short edge of the substrate as column traces using wide conductive traces running along the borders of the substrate.

High resistivity metal fan out

Methods for chemically strengthening the edges of glass sheets are provided. Voids can be formed in a mother sheet. The edges of these voids may correspond to a portion of the new edges that would normally be created during separation and free shaping of the mother sheet. The mother sheet can then be immersed in a chemical strengthener. The edges of the voids can be chemically strengthened in addition to the front and back sides of the mother sheet. After thin film processing and separation, each of the resulting individual sheets has been chemically strengthened on both sides and on a portion of its edges.

Perforated mother sheet for partial edge chemical strengthening and method therefor

A method for improving the lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) film (such as films in thin film batteries) morphology includes using oxygen (O2) and argon (Ar) gases during sputtering deposition of the LiCoO2 film. This may allow for the manufacturing of thicker LiCoO2 films. Such a method may also significantly reduce or eliminate cracking and obvious columnar structures within the resulting LiCoO2 film layer. Sputtering using a mixture of O2 and Ar also may produce a LiCoO2 film layer that requires lower annealing temperatures to reach good utilization and has higher lithium diffusion rates.

[object Object]

A battery assembly can be formed on a base layer provided on a substrate, with a thin film battery stack including an anode layer, a cathode layer, and an electrolyte layer between the anode and cathode layers. The thin film battery stack can be encapsulated, and assembled into a battery system with electrical power connections for the anode and cathode layers.

Thin film encapsulation battery systems

A method of annealing a thin film deposited on a substrate. According to the method, the thin film deposited on the substrate is provided. The provided thin film is irradiated with electromagnetic radiation until a predetermined crystal quality of the thin film is achieved. The spectral band of the electromagnetic radiation is selected such that the thin film is substantially absorptive to the electromagnetic radiation and the substrate is substantially transparent to the electromagnetic radiation.

Annealing method for thin film electrodes

A battery assembly can be formed on a base layer provided on a temporary process substrate, with a thin film battery stack including an anode layer, a cathode layer, and an electrolyte layer between the anode and cathode layers. The thin film battery stack can be bonded to a transfer layer, and the process substrate can be removed for assembly into a battery system.

Thin film transfer battery systems

The formation of metal traces in the border areas of a touch sensor panel to provide improved reliability, better noise rejection, and lower manufacturing costs is disclosed. The metal traces can be coupled to rows on the touch sensor panel in an interleaved manner, so that any two successive rows can be coupled to metal traces in border areas on opposite sides of the touch sensor panel. In addition, by utilizing the full width available in the border areas in some embodiments, the metal traces can be formed from higher resistivity metal, which can reduce manufacturing costs and improve trace reliability. The wider traces can also provide better noise immunity from noise sources such as an LCD by providing a larger fixed-potential surface area and by more effectively coupling the drive lines to the fixed potential.

A touch screen including display pixels with capacitive elements is provided. The touch screen includes first common voltage lines connecting capacitive elements in adjacent display pixels, and a second common voltage line connecting first common voltage lines. Groups of pixels can be formed as electrically separated regions by including breaks in the common voltage lines. The regions can include a drive region that is stimulated by stimulation signals, a sense region that receives sense signals corresponding to the stimulation signals. A grounded region can also be included, for example, between a sense region and a drive region. A shield layer can be formed of a substantially high resistance material and disposed to shield a sense region. A black mask line and conductive line under the black mask line can be included, for example, to provide low-resistance paths between a region of pixels and touch circuitry outside the touch screen borders.

Display with dual-function capacitive elements

Improved techniques are disclosed for fabrication of touch panels using thin sheet glass. Thin touch sensor panels each having a thickness of substantially less than approximately one-half millimeter can be produced. A thin mother glass sheet having a thickness of substantially less then approximately one half millimeter can be used. A thin film can be coupled to a surface of the thin mother glass sheet, and the thin film can be photolithographically patterned, while avoiding breakage of the thin mother glass sheet. The thin mother glass sheet can be singulated into the thin touch sensor panels.

Thin sheet glass processing

When a user operates a touch sensor panel having an LCD device outdoors or in a bright environment, light reflecting off the device can create glare. In order to reduce glare, a user can view the device through polarized filters such as polarized sunglasses. Doing so can reduce the visibility of the image displayed on the LCD. A quarter-wave retardation film can be added to the touch sensor panel's LCD device to mitigate these effects by producing circularly polarized light. However, adding a separate quarter-wave retardation film can increase the thickness and cost of manufacturing the touch sensor panel. Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to a touch sensor panel constructed from a base film having quarter-wave retardation properties that can produce circularly polarized light. Because the base film has the desired optical properties, a separate quarter-wave retardation film may not be needed.

Dual purpose touch sensor panel and optical retarder

A method for fabricating thin DITO or SITO touch sensor panels with a thickness less than a minimum thickness tolerance of existing manufacturing equipment. In one embodiment, a sandwich of two thin glass sheets is formed such that the combined thickness of the glass sheets does not drop below the minimum thickness tolerance of existing manufacturing equipment when thin film process is performed on the surfaces of the sandwich during fabrication. The sandwich may eventually be separated to form two thin SITO/DITO panels. In another embodiment, the fabrication process involves laminating two patterned thick substrates, each having at least the minimum thickness tolerance of existing manufacturing equipment. One or both of the sides of the laminated substrates are then thinned so that when the substrates are separated, each is a thin DITO/SITO panel having a thickness less than the minimum thickness tolerance of existing manufacturing equipment.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Lili Huang