Apple Inc.

Novellus Systems Incorporated

Sean C Chang

Marc Albrecht

Pierre-Yves Emelie

Michal Danek

Tobias Jung

Wei Hsin Yao

Raashina Humayun

Aaron R Fellis

Anand Chandrashekar

Duane M Petrovich

Warren S Rieutort-Louis

David S Zalatimo

Myung-Je Cho

Jean-Pierre Simon Guillou

Hung Sheng Lin

Hyunwoo Nho

Shengkui Gao

Mingxia Gu

Koorosh Aflatooni

Chengrui Le

Graeme M Williams

Lingyu Hong

Zhao Wang

Manev Luthra

Guangquan Lu

Jun Qi

Chaohao Wang

Yafei Bi

Chieh-Wei Chen

Bhadri N Varadarajan

Mohammad Bagher Vahid Far

Kevin J Ilcisin

Victor Y Lu

Marc Joseph DeVincentis

Erich R Klawuhn

Juwen Gao

ByoungSuk Kim

Nicolas P Bonnier

Mohammad Ali Jangda

James Samuel Sims

Maxim Kelman

Feng Wang

Krishnan Shrinivasan

Yingying Tang

Wei Lei

David Mordo

Teun R Baar

Abdeslam Hafidi

Mohammad Hajirostam

Michael Carris

Xiang Fang

Anshi Liang

Kasra Omid-Zohoor

Ron Powell

Kevin W Sliech

Jingyu Huang

Ameya Y Joshi

Chen Zheng

Soojin Park

Bhadrinarayana L Visweswaran

Andrei E Toma

Chumin Zhao

Mandar Pandit

Anand Chadrashekar

A display may have an active area that includes display pixels. The display may include an inactive notch region that extends into the active area. Data lines may provide image data from display driver circuitry to the display pixels. The image data may include data signals that correspond to portions of the display that do not include pixels, such as the inactive notch region. The null data signals may cause nonuniformities in the displayed image. The null data signals may be adjusted to minimize the nonuniformities. Null data signals corresponding to the inactive notch region may be adjusted to have gray levels that gradually decrease with distance from the border between the inactive notch and the active area. All of the data signals corresponding to the inactive notch may be set to a uniform gray level.

Data signal adjustment for displays

A display may have a pixel array such as a liquid crystal pixel array. The pixel array may be illuminated by a backlight unit that includes an array of light-emitting diodes. A backlight brightness selection circuit may select brightness values for the light-emitting diodes. The backlight brightness selection circuit may select the brightness values based on image data, based on brightness values used in previous image frames, based on device information, and/or based on sensor information. The backlight brightness selection circuit may select the backlight brightness levels to mitigate visible artifacts such as flickering and halo. The backlight levels selected by the backlight brightness selection may be modified by a power consumption compensation circuit. The power consumption compensation circuit may estimate the amount of power consumption required to operate the backlight using the target brightness levels and may modify the target brightness levels to meet maximum power consumption requirements.

Displays with adjustable direct-lit backlight units and adaptive processing

Systems, methods, and computer readable media to improve the operation of display systems are disclosed. In general, techniques are disclosed for dynamically adjusting backlight elements based on image content. More particularly, a backlight element's intensity may be targeted for boosting (i.e., increasing) based on content of the backlight element's corresponding image region, where after a check may be made to determine if the proposed increase is likely to risk generation of a halo. If the proposed intensity increase would risk a halo, the backlight element's proposed intensity may be dimmed. Repeating the boost/dim cycle in an iterative fashion permits an image to be displayed with brighter highlights and deeper blacks.

Locally adaptive backlight control

A display device may include a processor that may receive image data, such that the image data may include gray level data and display brightness value (DBV) data for a first pixel of a display. The processor may then determine a gain compensation factor associated with the first pixel based on a correction spatial map, a brightness adaptation lookup table (LUT), the gray level data, and the DBV data. The processor may then determine an offset compensation factor associated with the first pixel based on the correction spatial map, the brightness adaptation lookup table (LUT), the gray level data, and the DBV data. The processor may generate compensated gray level data by applying the gain compensation factor and the offset compensation factor to the gray level data and transmit the compensated gray level data to pixel driving circuitry associated with the first pixel.

Applying gain and offset correction factors for pixel uniformity compensation in display panels

An electronic device may be provided with a display. The display may include a backlight having an array of locally dimmable light sources. Control circuitry may provide control signals to the backlight to produce light at different brightness levels. When the brightness level is below a threshold, the control circuitry may use pulse-width-modulation control signals to control the light sources in the backlight. When the brightness level is above the brightness threshold, the control circuitry may use analog control signals to control the light sources in the backlight. The control circuitry may adjust the threshold to achieve different dimming ranges for different brightness settings. A low brightness setting, for example, may have a lower threshold and lower dimming range than a high brightness setting, which may help produce darker darks when the display operates in a low brightness setting.

Backlights with dynamic dimming ranges

Systems and methods reduce likelihood of hysteresis that reduces perceived image quality of a subsequent image frame by toggling the display pixels to relax the display pixels by overwriting previous image frame data. During non-emission periods of the pixels, the pixels may be pre-toggled or exercised to improve response time and accuracy of the pixel. Data for pixels being programmed may also be used to pre-toggle other pixels reducing overhead but increasing cross-talk. Since the amount of cross-talk is related to content of the pixels being pre-toggled, a line buffer may be used to store image data for the pixels being pre-toggled. This stored image data may be used to determine how much pre-compensation is to be applied to data for the pixels being programmed. In other words, an amount of compensation applied is based at least in part on the content (e.g., greyscale levels) of the image data.

Pre-compensation for pre-toggling-induced artifacts in electronic displays

Display with adjustable direct-lit backlight units

Displays with adjustable direct-lit backlight units and power consumption compensation

Systems, methods, and computer readable media to improve the operation of display systems are described herein. In general, techniques are disclosed for ambient and content adaptive local tone mapping operations that improve display readability under bright ambient light conditions. More particularly, techniques disclosed herein improve contrast and brightness of dark image content while preserving bright areas. The disclosed architecture and operational methodologies generate high contrast images (e.g., amplifying dark regions while preserving bright content), preserve uniform backgrounds (e.g., static background pixels), are stabile in the face of local and global histogram changes (e.g., background not affected by small moving objects such as a mouse pointer), and provide near seamless fade-in and fad-out transitions.

Ambient and content adaptive pixel manipulation

Displays with adjustable direct-lit backlight units

A highly tensile dielectric layer is generated on a heat sensitive substrate while not exceeding thermal budget constraints. Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is used to produce highly tensile films to be used, for example, in strained NMOS transistor architectures. UV curing of as-deposited PECVD silicon nitride films, for example, has been shown to produce films with stresses of at least 1.65 E10 dynes/cm. Other dielectric capping layer film materials show similar results. In transistor implementations, the stress from a source/drain region capping layer composed of such a film is uniaxially transferred to the NMOS channel through the source-drain regions to create tensile strain in the NMOS channel.

Tensile dielectric films using UV curing

Methods and apparatuses for filling high aspect ratio features with tungsten-containing materials are provided. The method involves providing a partially fabricated semiconductor substrate and depositing a tungsten-containing layer on the substrate surface to partially fill one or more high aspect ratio features. The method continues with selective removal of a portion of the deposited layer such that more material is removed near the feature opening than inside the feature. In certain embodiments, removal may be performed at mass-transport limited conditions with less etchant available inside the feature than near its opening. Etchant species are activated before being introduced into the processing chamber and/or while inside the chamber. In specific embodiments, recombination of the activated species is substantially limited and/or controlled during removal, e.g., operation is performed at less than about 250&#xb0; C. and/or less than about 5 Torr.

Depositing tungsten into high aspect ratio features

The present invention addresses provides improved methods of preparing a low-k dielectric material on a substrate. The methods involve multi-step ultraviolet curing processes in which UV intensity, wafer substrate temperature and other conditions may be independently modulated at each step. In certain embodiments, a film containing a structure former and a porogen is exposed to UV radiation in a first step to facilitate removal of the porogen and create a porous dielectric film. In a second step, the film is exposed to UV radiation to increase crosslinking within the porous film. In certain embodiments, the curing takes place in a multi-station UV chamber wherein UV intensity and substrate temperature may be independently controlled at each station.

Method for reducing stress in porous dielectric films

Methods and apparatuses for filling high aspect ratio features with tungsten-containing materials in a substantially void-free manner are provided. In certain embodiments, the method involves depositing an initial layer of a tungsten-containing material followed by selectively removing a portion of the initial layer to form a remaining layer, which is differentially passivated along the depth of the high-aspect ration feature. In certain embodiments, the remaining layer is more passivated near the feature opening than inside the feature. The method may proceed with depositing an additional layer of the same or other material over the remaining layer. The deposition rate during this later deposition operation is slower near the feature opening than inside the features due to the differential passivation of the remaining layer. This deposition variation, in turn, may aid in preventing premature closing of the feature and facilitate filling of the feature in a substantially void free manner.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Sean C Chang