Apple Inc.

Patterson + Sheridan Llp

Wenqing Dai

Chun-Hao Tung

Ji Hun Choi

Jeffrey M Weisse

Tae Kyung Won

Dong-Kil Yim

Harvey You

Xuena Zhang

Wan-Yu Lin

Isaac Wing-Tak Chan

Sz-Hsiao Chen

Yun-chu Tsai

Hsiao-Lin Yang

Touch screens with ultra-thin stack-ups can provide for a lower profile device, can improve the optical image on the display by reducing the display to cover glass distance, and can reduce the weight of the device. In some examples, the thickness of the touch screen stack-up can be reduced and/or the border region reduced, by removing the flex circuit connection from the stack-up. A flexible substrate can be used to enable routing of touch electrodes to touch circuitry. In some examples including a shield layer, the thickness of the touch screen stack-up can be reduced by routing the shield layer to a shield electrode on the touch sensor panel. The shield layer can then be routed to touch sensing circuitry via the flexible substrate. In some examples, the touch sensor panel or a portion of thereof can be integrated with the polarizer.

Ultra-thin touch sensors

A touch sensor panel can include a silver nanowire touch electrodes formed in a silver nanowire layer on the substrate. In some examples, the touch sensor panel can include one or more anticorrosion layers to protect silver nanowire layer from ionization. In some examples, the silver nanowires include electrochemically stable outer shells that protect the silver nanowires from ionization. Additionally or alternatively, the touch sensor panel can including one or more anti-static layers to protect against electrostatic discharge (ESD). Additionally or alternatively, one or more anticorrosion layers and/or one or more antistatic layers can be formed with a passivation layer therebetween. The passivation layer, one or more anticorrosion layers and/or one or more antistatic layers can then be laminated to the silver nanowire layer to prevent corrosion and/or ESD events in the silver nanowire layer during the fabrication of the touch sensor panel.

Touch sensor panels with silver nanowire-based touch electrodes

Embodiments of the disclosure generally provide methods of forming a capacitor with high capacitance and low leakage as well as a good interface control for thin film transistor (TFT) applications. In one embodiment, a thin film transistor structure includes a capacitor formed in a thin film transistor device. The capacitor further includes a common electrode disposed on a substrate, a dielectric layer formed on the common electrode and a pixel electrode formed on the dielectric layer. An interface protection layer formed between the common electrode and the dielectric layer, or between the dielectric layer and the pixel electrode. A gate insulating layer fabricated by a high-k material may also be utilized in the thin film transistor structure.

Interface engineering for high capacitance capacitor for liquid crystal display

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Wenqing Dai