Apple Inc.

Appple Inc.

Marduke Yousefpor

Steven Porter Hotelling

Mohammad Yeke Yazdandoost

Shih Chang Chang

Christoph Horst Krah

Brian Michael King

Marcus Yip

Giovanni Gozzini

Ehsan Khajeh

Kevin J White

Aaron Scott Tucker

John Z Zhong

Yingxuan Li

Weijun Yao

Shahrooz Shahparnia

Martin Paul Grunthaner

Ahmad Al-Dahle

Thomas James Wilson

Steve Porter Hotelling

Ting Sun

Hopil Bae

Ricardo Jansson Motta

Vivek Pant

Manohar B Srikanth

Sagar Rajiv Vaze

Kathrin Berkner-Cieslicki

Zhibing Ge

Abbas Jamshidi Roudbari

Henry Hung Yang

Abbas Jamshidi-Roudbari

Wei Hsin Yao

Cheng Kai Chen

Brian Richards Land

Matthew Emanuel Last

Sumant Ranganathan

Cheng-Ho Yu

Bingrui Yang

Stephen S Poon

Young-Bae Park

Amit Nayyar

Wayne Carl Westerman

Joseph Kurth Reynolds

John Stephen Smith

Dale R Setlak

Ting-Kuo Chang

Hyunwoo Nho

Benjamin B Lyon

Shih-Chang Chang

Christopher Tenzin Mullens

Sean Erik O'Connor

Jean-Marie Bussat

Peter J Kardassakis

Wesley William Zuber

Taif Ahmed Syed

Yu-Cheng Chen

Kathrin Berkner Cieslicki

Bosheng Zhang

Adam Geboff

Cheng Ho Yu

Shwetabh Verma

Electrodes configurable for capacitive touch sensing or inductive sensing are disclosed. The electrodes are formed from a plurality of tiled (connected) sense pixels, each sense pixel including two or four conductive elements. The conductive elements within the plurality of sense pixels of an electrode are connected to form conductive pathways within the electrode. These conductive pathways enable each electrode to be configured as a touch electrode for single-ended or differential capacitive touch sensing, or into one or two loops for inductive sensing. In pixels with four conductive elements, two conductive elements are formed with a comb shape for maximizing current conduction during inductive sensing and maximizing capacitive coupling during touch sensing, and two conductive elements are formed as bypasses. In electrodes formed from sense pixels with four conductive elements, each conductive pathway within the electrode is formed as an alternating series of comb-shaped conductive elements and bypasses.

Inductive stylus sensing

A touch controller that can configure touch circuitry according to a scan plan, which can define a sequence of scan events to be performed on a touch panel is disclosed. The touch controller can include a configurable transmit section to generate stimulation signals to drive the panel, a configurable receive section to receive and process touch signals from the panel, and a configurable memory to store the touch signals. The touch controller can also include a programmable scan engine to configure the transmit section, the receive section, and the memory according to the scan plan. The touch controller advantageously provides more robust and flexible touch circuitry to handle various types of touch events at the panel. An active stylus that can generate stimulation signals that can be detected by the touch controller during various touch events at the panel is also disclosed.

Touch controller architecture

Differential driving and/or differential sensing can reduce noise in the touch and/or display systems of a touch screen. In some examples, the touch sensor panel can include column and row electrodes routed vertically to a first edge of the touch sensor panel. In some examples, a touch sensor panel can be divided into banks. In some examples, the routing traces for rows can be implemented using four routing tracks per column for three banks. In some examples, the arrangement of routing traces within routing tracks can improve optical characteristics and/or reduce routing trace resistances and loading. In some examples, interconnections between routing traces and row electrodes can have a chevron pattern, an S-shape pattern, or a hybrid pattern. In some examples, differential sense routing can reduce cross-coupling within the touch sensor panel. In some examples, staggering differential drive signals can reduce parasitic signal loss.

Architecture for differential drive and sense for touch sensor panel

In one implementation, an apparatus includes a display having a front surface and a back surface. The display includes a plurality of pixel regions that emit light from the front surface to display a displayed image and a plurality of apertures that transmit light from the front surface to the back surface. The apparatus includes a camera disposed on a side of the back surface of the display. The camera is configured to capture a captured image. The apparatus includes a processor coupled to the display and the camera. The processor is configured to receive the captured image and apply a first digital filter to a first portion of the captured image and a second digital filter, different than the first digital filter, to a second portion of the captured image to reduce image distortion caused by the display.

Electronic device including a camera disposed behind a display

Acoustic touch and/or force sensing system architectures and methods for acoustic touch and/or force sensing can be used to detect a position of an object touching a surface and an amount of force applied to the surface by the object. The position and/or an applied force can be determined using time-of-flight (TOF) techniques, for example. Acoustic touch sensing can utilize transducers (e.g., piezoelectric) to simultaneously transmit ultrasonic waves along a surface and through a thickness of a deformable material. The location of the object and the applied force can be determined based on the amount of time elapsing between the transmission of the waves and receipt of the reflected waves. In some examples, an acoustic touch sensing system can be insensitive to water contact on the device surface, and thus acoustic touch sensing can be used for touch sensing in devices that may become wet or fully submerged in water.

Differential acoustic touch and force sensing

An acoustic imaging system includes multiple transducers disposed to circumscribe a portion of substrate. An acoustic imaging system also includes a controller and an image resolver. The transducers convert electrical signals into mechanical energy and/or mechanical energy into electrical signals. The controller is adapted to apply an electrical signal to the transducers which, in response, induce a mechanical wave, such as a surface wave, into the circumscribed portion. The controller is also adapted to receive electrical signals from the transducers. The image resolver uses the electrical signals received by the controller in order to construct an image of an object in physical contact with the substrate.

Acoustic imaging system architecture

Electrical shield line systems are provided for openings in common electrodes near data lines of display and touch screens. Some displays, including touch screens, can include multiple common electrodes (Vcom) that can have openings between individual Vcoms. Some display screens can have an open slit between two adjacent edges of Vcom. Openings in Vcom can allow an electric field to extend from a data line through the Vcom layer. A shield can be disposed over the Vcom opening to help reduce or eliminate an electric field from affecting a pixel material, such as liquid crystal. The shield can be connected to a potential such that electric field is generated substantially between the shield and the data line to reduce or eliminate electric fields reaching the liquid crystal.

Display screen shield line system

Differential driving and/or sensing can reduce noise in a touch screen. In some examples, the touch screen can include column and row electrodes routed vertically in the active area. In some examples, the touch electrodes and/or routing traces can be implemented using metal mesh in first and second metal layers. To improve optical performance, overlapping portions of metal mesh can be designed to provide an appearance of uniform width/area. In some examples, a dielectric layer can have an increased thickness and/or a reduced dielectric constant, and/or metal mesh in the first metal layer can be flooded with a transparent conductive material. In some examples, routing traces can be disposed beneath touch electrodes and/or metal mesh for touch electrodes can be flooded with a transparent conductive material without flooding metal mesh for routing traces. In some examples, touch electrodes can be interleaved within a touch node to improve differential cancelation.

Architecture for differential drive and sense touch technology

A touch controller is disclosed. The touch controller can include sense circuitry configured to sense, during a self-capacitance portion of a touch frame, first one or more self-capacitances associated with a first plurality of touch pixels on a touch sensor panel, and sense, during a mutual capacitance portion of the touch frame, first one or more mutual capacitances associated with the first plurality of touch pixels. A touch processor can be configured to, based on the first one or more self-capacitances and the first one or more mutual capacitances, sense a single touch event associated with the touch frame.

Ungrounded user signal compensation for pixelated self-capacitance touch sensor panel

A touch sensor panel is disclosed. In some examples, the touch sensor panel comprises a plurality of touch node electrodes. In some examples, the touch sensor panel comprises a touch controller configured to drive and sense the plurality of touch node electrodes in a fully bootstrapped configuration to obtain a fully bootstrapped touch image, drive and sense the plurality of touch node electrodes in a second configuration, different from the fully bootstrapped configuration, to obtain a second touch image, the second touch image including an effect of water on the touch sensor panel, and determine a final touch image based on the fully bootstrapped touch image and the second touch image, the final touch image not including the effect of the water on the touch sensor panel. In some examples, the second configuration comprises a mutual capacitance configuration. In some examples, the second configuration comprises a partially bootstrapped configuration.

Pixelated self-capacitance water rejection

Touch sensor panels (or touch screens) can improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) using touch electrode patterns for differential drive and/or differential sense techniques. In some examples, a touch sensor panel can include a two-dimensional array of touch nodes formed from a plurality of touch electrodes. Each column (or row) of touch nodes can be driven with a plurality of drive signals. For example, a first column (or row) of touch nodes can be driven by a first drive signal applied to one or more first touch nodes in the first column (or row) and a second drive signal applied to a one or more second touch nodes of the first column (or row). In some examples, the first drive signal and the second drive signal can be complimentary drive signals. In some examples, each row (or column) of touch electrodes can be sensed by differential sense circuitry.

Differential drive and sense for touch sensor panel

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Marduke Yousefpor