Apple Inc.

Wenyong Zhu

Victor H Yin

Jun Qi

Mookyung Son

Daming Xu

Rong Liu

Wei Lv

Steven M Scardato

Heesang Suh

Hung Sheng Lin

ByoungSuk Kim

Yi Huang

Chenhua You

Ziruo Hong

Ling Han

Pee Khiam So

Jeremy C Franklin

Derek William Wright

Xinyu Zhu

Joshua A Spechler

Zhenyue Luo

Suraj P Gorkhali

Janos C Keresztes

Thomas O Henry

Edward H Kang

Shaofeng Liu

Wei Chen

John Raff

Li Zhang

Florence W Ow

Erik Andrew Uttermann

Zhenbin Ge

Yu P Sun

Min Tao

Lee B Hamstra

Tavys Q Ashcroft

Juan He

Adam Adjiwibawa

Daniel B Sargent

Trevor M Cardiff

Sherry Cao

Corey S Provencher

Supriya Goyal

Yufeng Yan

Yuxi Zhao

Wei He

Shin-Ying Lu

Shaowei Qin

Benjamin M Oztalay

Sayooj R Pillai

Michael Tom

Jason Bakhshi

Daniel J Hoff

Jason A U De Souza

Pee Khaim So

Ryan A Zimmerman

Po Hsun Chen

Jeremy L Britt

Fei Yan

Xinsheng Chu

Chan Hyuk Park

Thomas Mueller

Byungsoo Ko

Shan-Ting Hsu

A privacy film may have a light-blocking layer that is interposed between first and second transparent substrates. The light-blocking layer may have a plurality of opaque portions and a plurality of transparent portions. The opaque portions may be shaped to ensure light from the display is directed only to the primary viewer of the display. Each opaque portion of the light-blocking layer may extend along a respective longitudinal axis between the first and second transparent substrates. Privacy films used to cover curved displays may have opaque portions that extend along longitudinal axes that have different angles relative to the transparent substrates. Opaque portions in the edge of the privacy film may have longitudinal axes that are at non-perpendicular angles with respect to the transparent substrates. A privacy film for a curved display may also include a light-redirecting layer such as a prism layer or a liquid crystal layer.

Privacy films for curved displays

A portable electronic device can include a housing defining an aperture and a display positioned in the aperture. The portable electronic device can include a number of components that can provide desired functionalities and levels of performance. For example, the device can include one or more couplers that interconnect various portions of the housing together. Additionally or alternatively, the portable electronic device can include one or more millimeter-wave antennas. Additionally, or alternatively, the electronic device can include one or more grounding elements or layers that reliably and electrically ground the display to the housing.

Electronic device

An electronic device may have a camera. The camera may capture still and moving images. A camera status indicator may be included in the electronic device. The camera status indicator may emit light to indicate when the camera is in use capturing video or other images. The camera status indicator may have multiple light-emitting devices such as light-emitting diodes or lasers. The light-emitting devices may have different colors. Clear encapsulant may cover the light-emitting devices. A white polymer wall or other light recycling structure may run along an outer peripheral edge of the encapsulant. A light diffusing coating layer may coat an outer surface of the clear encapsulant. Light reflections from the status indicator may be reduced in captured images.

Electronic device with camera status indicator

A display may have a pixel array such as a liquid crystal pixel array. The pixel array may be illuminated with backlight illumination from a direct-lit backlight unit. The backlight unit may include an array of light-emitting diodes on a printed circuit board. The backlight unit may include first, second, and third light spreading layers formed over the array of light-emitting diodes. A color conversion layer may be formed over the first, second, and third light spreading layers. First and second brightness enhancement films may be formed over the color conversion layer.

Displays with direct-lit backlight units

An electronic device includes display layers such as liquid crystal display layers and a backlight unit that provides illumination for the display layers. The backlight unit includes light-emitting diodes that emit light into the edge of a light guide film. To minimize the inactive area of the display, the light-emitting diodes are tightly spaced to approximate a line light source instead of point light sources. Color and/or luminance compensation layers are incorporated at various locations within the backlight structures to ensure that the backlight provided to the display layers is homogenous. A thin-film transistor layer of the display is coupled to a printed circuit board by a flexible printed circuit. The flexible printed circuit has additional solder mask layers to improve robustness, encapsulation, and traces with a varying pitch.

Electronic device display with a backlight

A rigid flex printed circuit board (PCB), method of manufacture, and display system incorporating the same are described. In an embodiment, a rigid flex PCB includes a flexible area extending from an adjacent routing area that is thicker than the flexible area. A flexible inner core spans the flexible area and the adjacent routing area. Outer stack-up layers are on the flexible inner core in the adjacent routing area. A cavity is formed in the outer stack-up layers in the routing area and exposes the flexible inner core. In an embodiment, a display system including such a circuit board may include an electronic component mounted on the flexible inner core within the cavity, and a distal end of the flexible area is bonded to a display panel.

Display system and rigid flex PCB with flip chip bonded inside cavity

A display may have a pixel array such as a liquid crystal pixel array. The pixel array may be illuminated with backlight illumination from a backlight unit. The backlight unit may include a printed circuit board, a plurality of light-emitting diodes mounted on the printed circuit board, at least one light spreading layer formed over the printed circuit board that spreads light received from the plurality of light-emitting diodes, a partially reflective layer formed over the at least one light spreading layer, a color conversion layer formed over the partially reflective layer, a collimating layer formed over the color conversion layer, a brightness enhancement film formed over the collimating layer, and a diffuser formed over the brightness enhancement film. The at least one light spreading layer may include two light spreading layers with elongated protrusions that are rotated relative to each other.

An electronic device may include display layers such as liquid crystal display layers and a backlight unit that provides illumination for the display layers. The backlight unit may include light-emitting diodes that emit light into the edge of a light guide film. To minimize the inactive area of the display, the light-emitting diodes may be tightly spaced to approximate a line light source instead of point light sources. Color and/or luminance compensation layers may be incorporated at various locations within the backlight structures to ensure that the backlight provided to the display layers is homogenous. A thin-film transistor layer of the display may be coupled to a printed circuit board by a flexible printed circuit. The flexible printed circuit may have additional solder mask layers to improve robustness, may include encapsulation, and may have traces with a varying pitch.

Light-emitting diodes in displays with direct-lit backlight units

A display may have a backlight unit that provides backlight illumination. The backlight unit may include a light guide that distributes light through the display. Light-emitting diodes may emit light into the light guide. A reflector that is overlapped by the light guide may help reflect light upwards through an array of pixels. The backlight unit may have a chassis that receives the reflector, light guide, light-emitting diodes, and optical films such as diffusers and prism films. Optical and mechanical features in the backlight unit may enhance color and intensity uniformity for the backlight illumination and may help enhance durability.

Electronic devices with backlit displays

An organic light-emitting diode display may have an array of pixels formed from a layer of thin-film circuitry. The thin-film circuitry may be formed on a glass layer that serves as an inner layer of encapsulation for the array of pixels formed from the thin-film circuitry. A thin-film encapsulation layer may overlap the array of pixels and may serve as an opposing outer layer of encapsulation for the array of pixels formed by the thin-film circuitry. An electronic device may have opposing front and rear faces. The display may be mounted in a housing on the front face. The housing may have a planar rear wall on the rear face. A display cover layer associated with the display may overlap the pixel array. A touch sensor and optical layers such as a circular polarizer layer and a compensation layer may be interposed between the display cover layer and the thin-film.

Electronic device having display with thin-film encapsulation

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Wenyong Zhu