This application claims the benefit of TW Application No. 110145340, filed on Dec. 3, 2021, and the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
The present disclosure relates to a backlight module, and, more specifically, to a backlight module that can improve uniformity of the light output.
Most current liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) have backlight modules that use light-emitting diode chips (LED chips) as light sources. To meet the requirements for high definition and high contrast, a direct-lit backlight module with a local dimming function is often used, so that the display can maintain its brightness in bright areas when it becomes darker in local areas.
To achieve the local dimming function, a chip-on-board (COB) configuration is introduced into the direct-lit backlight module. The backlight module usually includes a substrate having a circuit, LED chips disposed on the circuit, and a film material. The luminance uniformity of the backlight module may be influenced by the circuit layout and the arrangement of the LED chips, whereas the film material can eliminate the influence to a certain extent to increase the luminance uniformity. However, the film material may increase the thickness of the backlight module, which is not beneficial to compact products.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a backlight module which can provide uniform light emission without greatly increasing the overall thickness when using a film material. A backlight module is provided by an embodiment of the present disclosure. The backlight module includes a substrate having a substrate surface; a conductive layer disposed on the substrate surface; a plurality of LED chips disposed on and electrically connected to the conductive layer; a light-permeable layer having a light-permeable surface away from the substrate surface; and a pattern layer disposed on the light-permeable surface and having a plurality of first patterns corresponding to and respectively located above the plurality of LED chips. Wherein, each first pattern has a maximum width, and the maximum width of one first pattern satisfies the following formula:
WP≥2n(TE−TL)(1−1/n2)1/2+WL;
wherein WP is the maximum width of one first pattern, n is a refractivity of the light-permeable layer, TE is a thickness of the light-permeable layer, TL is a thickness of the LED chip, WL is a maximum width of LED chip corresponding to the first pattern.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide another backlight module. The backlight module includes a substrate having a substrate surface; a conductive layer disposed on the substrate surface; a plurality of LED chips disposed on and electrically connected to the conductive layer; a light-permeable layer disposed on the substrate surface. Wherein, the light-permeable layer has a light-permeable surface disposed away from the substrate surface; and a pattern layer disposed on the light-permeable surface, wherein the pattern layer has a plurality of first patterns and groups of second patterns, the plurality of first patterns respectively corresponding to and located above the plurality of LED chips, and one group of second patterns centers on and symmetrically surrounds one first pattern; wherein each of the plurality of first patterns has a maximum width and the maximum width of one first pattern satisfies the following formula:
WP≥WL; and
wherein WP is the maximum width of one first pattern and WL is a maximum width of one LED chip corresponding to the first pattern.
The accompanying drawings described herein are used to provide further understandings of the present disclosure and constituted as part of the present disclosure. The illustrative embodiments and descriptions of the present disclosure are used to explain the present disclosure, and are not constituted as inappropriate limitations to the present disclosure. In the accompanying drawings.
The technical solution in the embodiments of the present disclosure will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present disclosure. Apparently, the described embodiments are part of the embodiments of the present disclosure, instead of the whole embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present disclosure, all other embodiments obtained by a person having ordinary skill in the art without a creative labour is protected within the scope of the present disclosure.
Referring to
More specifically, since the emitting direction of the light having the strongest intensity is located directly above the top surfaces of the LED chips 400, to achieve a uniform light emission, a first pattern 610 is disposed at the position corresponding with the strongest light output of the LED chip 400 to shield the light. The first pattern 610 may have partial transmittance according to the requirements of the uniformity of the light output and intensity. The first patterns 610 may fully or partially reflect light from the LED chips 400. If the light of the LED chips 400 is mostly reflected (for example, the reflectivity of the first pattern 610 is greater than 95%), the light of the LED chips 400 can hardly pass through the first pattern 610 and the light intensity directly above the first pattern 610 is greatly reduced. On the contrary, if the light of the LED chips 400 is partially reflected (for example, the reflectivity of the first pattern 610 is less than or equal to 95%), part of the light of the LED chips 400 passes through the first patterns 610 to maintain a certain light intensity directly above the first patterns 610. By properly selecting the reflectivity of the first pattern 610 corresponding to the light emitted from the LED chips 400, e.g., equal to or larger than 85%, a uniform light output intensity distribution over the whole light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500 can be achieved. In other words, the light emitted through a region of the light-permeable surface 510 covered by the first pattern 610 and the light emitted through another region of the light-permeable surface 510 not covered by the first pattern 610 have similar light output intensities. For example, the difference between the light output intensities of the two regions is less than or equal to 30%.
WP≥2n(TE−TL)(1−1/n2)1/2+WL
wherein WP is the maximum width of the first pattern 610, n is a refractivity of the light-permeable layer 500, TE is the thickness of the light-permeable layer 500, TL is the thickness of the LED chip 400, and WL is the maximum width of the LED chip 400.
More specifically, through the arrangement of the elements in the backlight module 100 of the present disclosure, most of the light emitted from the LED chip 400 is reflected by the first pattern 610 after upwardly reaching the first pattern 610, so that the emitted light travels inside the light-permeable layer 500 and is emitted out through the light-permeable surface 510 that is not covered by the first pattern 610.
In addition to being blocked and/or reflected by the first pattern 610, the light emitted from the LED chip 400 to the outermost periphery (maximum width WP) of the first pattern 610 travels along the light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500 (i.e., this part of the light is not reflected or refracted to the pattern layer 600 above the light-permeable surface) because the incident angle of the light is equal to the critical angle. On the other hand, another part of the light emitted from the LED chip 400 to the region beyond the outermost periphery (the region greater than the maximum width WP) of pattern 610 travels restrictively inside the light-permeable layer 500 due to total reflection caused by the incident angle of the light greater than the critical angle. Such light is at last emitted out through a region of the light-permeable surface 510 not covered by the first patterns 610 after repeated internal reflections.
As a result, in addition to the aforementioned two parts, in the backlight module 100 of the present disclosure, since the main light-emitting direction of the LED chip 400 is directly above the LED chip 400, most of the light emitted from the LED chip 400 is reflected by the first pattern 610 disposed above the LED chip 400, whereas the rest of the light emitted from the LED chip 400 travels along the light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500, or travels inside the light-permeable layer 500 due to total reflection because the incident angle of the light is greater than the critical angle. Therefore, due to the arrangement of the first pattern 610, the traveling route of the light emitted from the LED chip 400 cannot be emitted out through the light-permeable layer 500 in the shortest path, and needs to be reflected multiple times inside the light-permeable layer 500 before being emitting out through other regions that are not covered by the first patterns 610, thereby achieving a uniform light emission of the backlight module 100 of the present disclosure.
In
In the embodiment shown in
In some embodiments, the area of the light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500 not covered by the plurality of first patterns 610 and the groups of second patterns 620 is greater than the area covered by the plurality of first patterns 610 and the groups of second patterns 620. Therefore, although part of the light emitted from the LED chips 400 may be blocked and/or reflected by the first patterns and the second patterns 620 when the light is reflected multiple times and emitted out through the light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500, because the area of the light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500 not covered by the plurality of first patterns 610 and the groups of second patterns 620 is greater than the area covered by the plurality of first patterns 610 and the groups of second patterns 620, the overall light emitted from the light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500 may still maintain a certain brightness and uniformity.
In
Besides, in the third embodiment of the pattern layer 600 shown in
In
More specifically, as shown in
In the backlight module 100 of the present disclosure, the pattern layer 600 has a thickness between 15 μm and 35 μm. The thickness of each pattern in the pattern layer 600 may be the same or different. Besides, the pattern layer 600 is disposed on the light-permeable surface 510 of the light-permeable layer 500 by printing or dispensing, and the material of the pattern layer 600 may be silicon resin, but is not limited thereto.
In
The uniform light emission is achieved by changing the size and distribution of each pattern included in the pattern layer 600 disclosed in the first to fourth embodiments as shown in
As shown in
Those skilled in the art may also make changes according to the disclosed content of the fifth embodiment, so that the pattern layer 600 has patterns other than the first patterns 610 and the second patterns 620, and wherein the patterns other than the first patterns 610 and the second patterns 620 have corresponding thicknesses and reflectivities to further uniformizing the light output from the LED chips 400.
As shown in
The substrate used in the backlight module 100 of the present disclosure may be a printed circuit board (PCB), ceramic substrate, or silicon substrate; the material of the light-permeable layer 500 may be formed of an organic polymer material such as polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), or polystyrene (PS), or may be formed of other transparent resin materials, for example, acrylic resin, cyclic olefin copolymer (COC), polycarbonate (PC), or silicone; and the material of the pattern layer 600 may be a reflective material. The material with required reflectivity may include, for example, matrix and reflective particles dispensed in the matrix. The matrix may be the resin material with transparency as mentioned above, and the material of the reflective particles may be: an oxide such as titanium oxide, zinc oxide, zirconium oxide, and aluminum oxide; a carbonate such as white lead (basic lead carbonate) or calcium carbonate; a clay mineral such as kaolinite; and so on.
In summary, in an aspect of the backlight module 100 of the present disclosure, the maximum width of the first pattern 610 in the pattern layer 600 is limited to appropriately block and/or reflect the emission light which is emitted from the LED chips 400 and toward the first pattern 610 directly above the LED chips 400, thereby increasing the reflection quantity of the light in the light-permeable layer 500 and uniformizing the brightness performance of the light emitted out through the light-permeable layer 500 to meet the high contrast requirement of a display. Besides, since the thickness of the pattern layer 600 in the embodiment of the present disclosure is between 15 μm and 35 μm, when replacing the diffuser plate having a thickness up to 1.3 mm in the existing structure with the pattern layer 600 disclosed in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the overall thickness of the backlight module can be effectively decreased and the overall cost of the module can be reduced. In another aspect of the backlight module 100 of the present disclosure, under the condition that the size and distributed density of each pattern of the pattern layer is the same, the reflectivity can be changed by adjusting the thickness of each pattern, thereby achieving a uniform light output of the LED chips 400.
The abovementioned embodiments are merely for illustrating the technical idea and features of the present disclosure, and the purpose is to enable those skilled in the art to understand the content of the present disclosure and implement it accordingly. It cannot be used to limit the patent scope of the present disclosure, that is, all equivalent changes or modifications made in accordance with the spirit disclosed in the present disclosure shall still be covered within the patent scope of the present disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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110145340 | Dec 2021 | TW | national |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20230176417 A1 | Jun 2023 | US |