Apple Inc.

Nathan K Gupta

Wei Lin

Shubhaditya Majumdar

Victor H Yin

Prabhakar Gulgunje

Jun Qi

John Z Zhong

Christopher L Boitnott

Po-Jui Chen

Boyi Fu

Yu-Cheng Chen

Ying-Da Wang

Sudirukkuge T Jinasundera

Cheng Kai Chen

Masato Kuwabara

Travis N Owens

Dinesh C Mathew

Michael Benjamin Wittenberg

Jean-Pierre Simon Guillou

Adam T Garelli

Bryan W Posner

Sunggu Kang

Nicholas Alan Rundle

Simon R Lancaster-Larocque

Michael J Brown

Pey-Jiun Ko

Chun-Hao Tung

Yazan Z Alnahhas

Karan S Jain

Dhaval Chandrakant Patel

Mookyung Son

Abhijit Ashok Kangude

Silvio Grespan

Supratik Datta

Xiaonan Wen

Mohd Fadzli A Hassan

Wayne H Fu

Chenhui Wang

Kuanying Lin

Andrew Deng

Timothy D Koch

Yindar Chuo

Shenglin Ye

Chih-Yao Chang

Atanas V Gagov

Chunchia Huang

Steven M Scardato

Karan Bir

Eugene C Cheung

Brian S Medower

Wookyung Bae

Xiaofan Niu

Xiaoqi Zhou

Di Liu

Weibo Cheng

Salman Karbasi

Prithu Sharma

Se Hyun Ahn

Da Yu

Chun-Chih Chang

Ho Hyung Lee

Rasmi R Das

Ian T Clark

Wei-Hao Sun

Robert W Rumford

Steve L Terry

Zhiyuan Sun

James Edward Alexander Pedder

Kuan-Ying Lin

Xiani Li

Yi Gu

Meng-Tse Chen

Ziyang Zhang

Arnoldus Alvin Barlian

Shifa Xu

Mahmut C Orsan

Bayu Atmaja Thedjoisworo

Boris Russ

Myunghun Lee

Jui-Ming Yang

Pavan O Gupta

An electronic device may have optical components that each have first and second transparent layers such as first and second glass layers. The glass layers may have outer surfaces that face away from each other and inner surfaces that face towards each other. A polymer layer is formed between the inner surfaces of the glass layers. Along the periphery of each optical component, a hermetic seal is formed to protect the polymer material of the polymer layer. The seal may include one or more metal layers that are coupled to the first and second glass layers. Alternatively or additionally, the seal may include an internal seal, such as a metal foil layer that extends between the first and second glass layers, within the optical component to reduce the width of the optical component.

Seals for optical components

A touch screen () can include electrodes () (e.g., first and second touch electrodes, reference electrodes) on opposite sides (e.g., top and bottom) of a substrate (). In some examples, vias () can be used to couple the touch electrodes () to conductive connections () of flex circuits () such that the connections () to the flex circuits () can be on the same side of the substrate () even if the touch electrodes () are on opposite sides of the substrate (). The conductive filling material of the via () can make direct contact with the conductive connections () of the flex circuits (), for example.

Systems and methods for flex circuit connections in touch screens

An electronic device may have optical components that each have first and second transparent layers such as first and second glass layers. The glass layers may have outer surfaces that face away from each other and inner surfaces that face towards each other. A polymer layer is formed between the inner surfaces of the glass layers. Along the periphery of each optical component, a hermetic seal is formed to protect the polymer material of the polymer layer. The seal may include one or more metal layers that are coupled to the first and second glass layers. For example, glass prism rings may be coupled to the first and second glass layers and metal may be coupled to the prism rings. The one or more metal layers may then be bonded to the metal on the prism rings, such as through soldering.

A light pipe such as a fiber ribbon may be formed from fibers joined by binder such as extruded binder. The fiber ribbon or other light pipe may have bends. A light source may provide light to an input of a fiber ribbon that is guided by the fiber ribbon to a corresponding output. The output may be located in an interior portion of an electronic device or may be positioned so that light from the output exits the electronic device and illuminates external objects. The light source may have light-emitting devices on a substrate. The light-emitting devices may be vertical cavity surface-emitting laser diodes or other lasers and/or may be light-emitting diodes. Light-emitting devices may be arranged in discrete clusters corresponding to the locations of fiber cores in the fiber ribbon.

Electronic devices with optical fiber ribbons

A two dimensional touch sensor panel can be thermoformed or curved by another process to a three-dimensional touch sensor panel, and the three-dimensional touch sensor panel can be laminated to a three-dimension surface having a highly curved or spherical shape. In some examples, thermoforming a two-dimensional touch sensor panel into a three-dimensional touch sensor panel can result in strain of the touch electrodes, and can result in non-uniform three-dimensional touch electrodes (distortion of the two-dimensional touch electrode pattern). The strain can be a function of the curved touch-sensitive surface and/or process related mechanical strain from thermoforming. In some examples, a three-dimensional touch sensor panel can be formed with uniform area touch electrodes using a two-dimensional touch sensor panel pattern with non-uniform area touch electrodes in accordance with the strain pattern expected for a given curved surface and thermoforming technique.

Spherical or highly curved touch-sensitive surfaces

An electronic device with a force sensing device is disclosed. The electronic device comprises a user input surface defining an exterior surface of the electronic device, a first capacitive sensing element, and a second capacitive sensing element capacitively coupled to the first capacitive sensing element. The electronic device also comprises a first spacing layer between the first and second capacitive sensing elements, and a second spacing layer between the first and second capacitive sensing elements. The first and second spacing layers have different compositions. The electronic device also comprises sensing circuitry coupled to the first and second capacitive sensing elements configured to determine an amount of applied force on the user input surface. The first spacing layer is configured to collapse if the applied force is below a force threshold, and the second spacing layer is configured to collapse if the applied force is above the force threshold.

Force sensing architectures

An electronic device may have a housing with a display. A protective display cover layer for the display may have an image transport layer formed from fibers or Anderson localization material. The image transport layer may include light absorbing material. Light absorbing material may be incorporated as an additive into a component of the image transport layer such as the binder layer of a coherent fiber bundle or the cladding of fibers in the image transport layer. The image transport layer may also be formed from fibers with a light absorbing layer formed in addition to a transparent cladding. The image transport layer may be formed from Anderson localization material that has light absorbing material. Fibers for the image transport layer may be extruded with light absorbing portions. A polymer preform having light absorbing material may be drawn to form fibers for the image transport layer.

Electronic devices with image transport layers having light absorbing material

An electronic device may have a display, a display cover layer, and an image transport layer formed from a coherent fiber bundle. The coherent fiber bundle may have an input surface that receives an image from the display and a corresponding output surface to which the image is provide through the coherent fiber bundle. The coherent fiber bundle may be placed between the display and the display cover layer and mounted to a housing. The coherent fiber bundle may have fiber cores with bends that help conceal the housing from view and make the display appear borderless. A central portion of the coherent fiber bundle may be formed from different materials and/or structures than a surrounding border portion of the layer.

Electronic devices with coherent fiber bundles

A system may include one or more electronic devices. Fiber bundles may be provided to convey light. A fiber bundle may have a bend along its length. Fibers for the fiber bundle may be formed from polymer cores coated with polymer claddings. The fibers may have end faces coated with antireflection coatings. The antireflection coatings may be formed from amorphous fluoropolymer deposited from solution. The fluoropolymer may be applied to the end faces of the fibers by dipping, spraying, or by dispensing with a needle dispenser or other dispensing tool. An optical component such as a light-emitting device for a communications system, an illumination system, or a sensor system may provide infrared light that is guided through the fiber bundle.

Systems having fibers with antireflection coatings

An electronic device may have a housing with a display. A protective display cover layer for the display may have an image transport layer such as an image transport layer formed from Anderson localization material. Anderson localization material may be formed using equipment such as heated molds, extrusion equipment, fusion tools, and fiber drawing equipment. The materials used to form a block of Anderson localization material may be polymers or other transparent materials. Elevated temperatures such as temperatures above the melting points of the polymers may be used during extrusion, fusion, drawing, and other operations.

Methods for forming image transport layers for electronic devices

An electronic device may have a display, a display cover layer, and a drawn sheet-packed coherent fiber bundle. The coherent fiber bundle may have an input surface that receives an image from the display and a corresponding output surface to which the image is transported. The coherent fiber bundle may be placed between the display and the display cover layer and mounted to a housing. The coherent fiber bundle may have fiber cores with bends that help conceal the housing from view and make the display appear borderless. The coherent fiber bundle has filaments formed from elongated strands of binder in which multiple fibers are embedded. Sheets of filaments are stacked and fused together to form a block of material that is subsequently drawn to form the drawn sheet-packed coherent fiber bundle.

Electronic devices with drawn sheet-packed coherent fiber bundles

An electronic device may have a display, a display cover layer, and a sheet-packed coherent fiber bundle. The coherent fiber bundle may have an input surface that receives an image from the display and a corresponding output surface to which the image is transported. The coherent fiber bundle may be placed between the display and the display cover layer and mounted to a housing. The coherent fiber bundle may have fiber cores with bends that help conceal the housing from view and make the display appear borderless. The coherent fiber bundle has filaments formed from elongated strands of binder in which multiple fiber cores are embedded. Sheets of filaments are stacked and fused together to form the coherent fiber bundle. By aligning and fusing the sheets with respect to each other the filaments are packed with a desired density and uniformity.

Electronic devices with sheet-packed coherent fiber bundles

A force input sensor includes a load cell to adapt a compressive force applied to the force input sensor into a strain experienced by a strain sensor in the load cell. In particular, the load cell includes two compression plates separated from one another by a gap so as to define a volume between them. A flexible substrate (a 'diaphragm')&#x2014;includes a strain sensor and is disposed and supported within the volume. One of the two compression plates includes a feature (a 'loading feature') that extends toward a central region of the flexible substrate. As a result of this construction, when the compression plates receive a compressive force, the loading feature induces a bending moment in the flexible substrate, thereby straining the strain sensor.

Load cell array for detection of force input to an electronic device enclosure

An electronic device may have a housing with a display. A protective display cover layer for the display may have an image transport layer such as a fiber optic plate. The fiber optic plate may be formed from fibers. An extruder may form fiber bundles that each include a respective plurality of fibers distributed in binder material. The fiber bundles from the extruder may be fed directly to a block forming die. The block forming die may receive the fiber bundles from the extruder and output a unitary fiber block. The fiber bundles may remain heated in the block forming die such that the binder material of the fiber bundles seamlessly merges during formation of the unitary fiber block. A cutter can be used to cut off a layer of the unitary fiber block. This layer may be machined and polished to form the fiber optic plate.

Single-step extrusion of fiber optic plates for electronic devices

An electronic device may have a housing with a display. A protective display cover layer for the display may have an image transport layer such as an image transport layer formed from optical fibers. Extruded filaments of binder material may be fused together to form a layer of binder for the image transport layer. Each filament may contain multiple embedded optical fibers. As a result of the extrusion process, the optical fibers may be characterized by increasing lateral deformation at increasing distances from the center of the filament in which the optical fibers are embedded. Tension variations and variations in the orientation angle of the fibers in the image transport layer can be maintained below desired limits to ensure satisfactory optical performance for the image transport layer. The optical fibers and binder may be formed from polymers or other clear materials.

Electronic devices with image transport layers

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Nathan K Gupta