Apple Inc.

Yu-Cheng Chen

Shih Chang Chang

Hiroshi Osawa

Kyung-Wook Kim

Ming-Chin Hung

Mohd Fadzli A Hassan

Ting-Kuo Chang

Chun-Yao Huang

Cheng-Ho Yu

Nathan K Gupta

Abbas Jamshidi Roudbari

Szu-Hsien Lee

Shang-Chih Lin

Kuan-Ying Lin

Marduke Yousefpor

Hirokazu Yamagata

Shih-Chang Chang

Byung Duk Yang

Young Cheol Yang

Kwang Soon Park

Christopher L Boitnott

Yong Kwan Kim

Daisuke Nozu

Supriya Goyal

An electronic device may include a display having an array of display pixels on a substrate. The display pixels may be organic light-emitting diode display pixels or display pixels in a liquid crystal display. In an organic light-emitting diode display, hybrid thin-film transistor structures may be formed that include semiconducting oxide thin-film transistors, silicon thin-film transistors, and capacitor structures. The capacitor structures may overlap the semiconducting oxide thin-film transistors. Organic light-emitting diode display pixels may have combinations of oxide and silicon transistors. In a liquid crystal display, display driver circuitry may include silicon thin-film transistor circuitry and display pixels may be based on oxide thin-film transistors. A single layer or two different layers of gate metal may be used in forming silicon transistor gates and oxide transistor gates. A silicon transistor may have a gate that overlaps a floating gate structure.

Displays with silicon and semiconducting oxide thin-film transistors

An electronic device is provided with a display such as a liquid crystal display. The display has a layer of liquid crystal material sandwiched between an upper display layer such as a color filter layer and a lower display layer such as a thin-film-transistor layer. An upper polarizer is formed on the upper surface of the color filter layer. A lower polarizer is formed on the lower surface of the thin-film-transistor layer. To protect display layers such as the color filter layer and the thin-film-transistor layer, a coating is deposited on a peripheral edge of the display layer. A laser is used to cut through portions of the polarizer that overhang the display layer while also cutting through the coating on the peripheral edge of the display layer. Following laser trimming operations, the coating is flush with an edge surface of the polarizer.

Methods for trimming polarizers in displays using edge protection structures

An electronic device is provided with a display such as a liquid crystal display mounted in an electronic device housing. The display has a layer of liquid crystal material sandwiched between an upper display layer such as a color filter layer and a lower display layer such as a thin-film-transistor layer. An upper polarizer is formed on the upper surface of the color filter layer. A lower polarizer is formed on the lower surface of the thin-film-transistor layer. To protect display layers such as a glass color filter layer substrate for the color filter layer from damage during polarizer trimming operations, a coating is deposited on a peripheral edge of the glass color filter layer substrate. The coating may be formed from an elastomeric polymer such as silicone and may remain in place or may be removed following trimming operations.

Methods for trimming polarizers in displays

A display may have a color filter layer and a thin-film transistor layer. A liquid crystal layer may be located between the color filter layer and the thin-film transistor layer. The color filter layer may have an array of color filter elements on a transparent substrate. The array of color filter elements may include more than three colors. Colored photoimageable polymer layers may be combined to form some of the color filter elements. The color filter may have cyan, magenta, and yellow color filter elements each formed from a respective single layer of cyan, magenta, and yellow polymer and may have blue elements formed by overlapping cyan and magenta polymer, green elements formed by overlapping cyan and yellow polymer, and red elements formed by overlapping magenta and yellow polymer. Filters with white elements may also be provided.

Color filter structures for electronic devices with color displays

Liquid crystal displays with oxide-based thin-film transistors

A display may have a color filter layer and a thin-film transistor layer. A layer of liquid crystal material may be located between the color filter layer and the thin-film transistor (TFT) layer. The TFT layer may include thin-film transistors formed on top of a glass substrate. A passivation layer may be formed on the thin-film transistor layers. A first low-k dielectric layer may be formed on the passivation layer. Data line routing structures may be formed on the first low-k dielectric layer. A second low-k dielectric layer may be formed on the first low-k dielectric layer. A common voltage electrode and associated storage capacitance may be formed on the second low-k dielectric layer. The first and second low-k dielectric layers may be formed from material having substantially similar refractive indices to maximize backlight transmittance and may have appropriate thicknesses so as to minimize parasitic capacitive loading.

Display circuitry with improved transmittance and reduced coupling capacitance

A display may have a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between a thin-film transistor layer and a color filter layer. An upper polarizer may be placed on top of the thin-film transistor layer. A lower polarizer may be placed under the color filter layer. Components may be bonded to bond pads on the inner surface of the thin-film transistor layer using anisotropic conductive film. Bond quality may be assessed by probing probe pads that are coupled to the bond pads or by visually inspecting the bond pads through the thin-film transistor layer. Opaque masking material in the inactive area may be provided with openings to accommodate the bond pads. Additional opaque masking material may be placed on the underside of the upper polarizer and on the upper surface of the thin-film transistor layer to block the openings from view following visual inspection.

Display with low reflectivity alignment structures

Display driver circuitry for liquid crystal displays with semiconducting-oxide thin-film transistors

A display may be provided with integral touch functionality. The display may include a common electrode layer having row electrodes arranged in rows and column electrodes interposed between the row electrodes of each row. The row electrodes may be electrically coupled by conductive paths. The row and column electrodes may be coupled to touch sensor circuitry that uses the row and column electrodes to detect touch events. Each electrode of the common electrode layer may cover a respective portion of an array of pixels. Each pixel of the display may have a respective aperture. The conductive paths that electrically couple row electrodes of the common electrode layer may cover or otherwise block some light from passing through pixels, resulting in reduced apertures. Dummy structures may be provided for other pixels that modify the apertures of the other pixels to match the reduced apertures associated with the conductive paths.

Displays with integrated touch and improved image pixel aperture

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Yu-Cheng Chen