The present invention generally pertains to a display apparatus, and particularly relates to a display apparatus which uses a luminescence device of current drive type.
The conventional display apparatus is mainly constituted by a liquid crystal display apparatus, however, in recent years, the display apparatus constituted by a plasma display apparatus has begun to be used. Further, it is performed to use an organic EL display apparatus for constitution of a display apparatus.
In order to provide such a display apparatus at low cost, it is preferable to use a drive configuration of passive matrix type. By using a passive matrix drive configuration, the thin film transistor which is required for active matrix drive configuration can be omitted.
Referring to
Further, to said substrate 11, a drive circuit 12A which selectively drives one of said scanning lines 11a, and a drive circuit 12B which selectively drives one or more than one of said data lines 11b are connected.
Then, by selecting one scanning line 11a with said drive circuit 12A, and selecting one data line 11b or a plurality of data lines 11b with said drive circuit 12B, one pixel or a plurality of pixels corresponding to the intersection point(s) between said selected scanning line 11a and data line(s) 11b emits light or emit light simultaneously.
Generally, said drive circuit 12A, 12B is formed in the shape of an integrated circuit chip, and it is typically connected to said display substrate 11 with a flexible substrate on which wiring patterns are printed for rendering the display apparatus compact. Such a form of packaging is known as a chip-on-film (COM) packaging. Especially when the COF packaging technology is used to package a drive circuit, ITO (In2O3.SnO2) patterns, which are suited for compression bonding of the flexible substrate, are often used.
The inventor of the present invention has discovered that, particularly in driving a display apparatus of current drive type, such as an organic EL device, a plasma display apparatus, or the like, if the length of the wiring pattern for connecting the drive circuit to the scanning line or the data line is changed for each line, there occurs a problem that the drive is rendered non-uniform.
Referring to
In either of the cases as shown in
For example, assuming that the sheet resistivity of the ITO wiring pattern 11c constituting the leader part of said scanning line 11a is 10Ω/□, and said ITO wiring pattern 11c has a wiring length of 5 mm, and a wiring width of 50 μm, the wiring resistance thereof is 1 kΩ, and if the drive current is 10 mA, a voltage drop reaching 10 V is caused along the ITO wiring pattern 11c.
In a configuration as shown in
In other words, as a result of the investigation by the inventor of the present invention, it has been revealed that, with the display apparatus having such a configuration, a pixel which will not be lighted even if a drive voltage of 20 V is applied is caused to occur in the peripheral portion of the display substrate 11.
Generally, the art which reduces the resistance value for the ITO pattern by laminating a lower resistance material, such as a Cr material, or the like, on the ITO pattern is well known. However, with such a method, the change in resistance resulting from the difference in length between ITO wiring patterns on the display substrate as shown in the connection part 11C in
As a method for compensating for the change in resistance that results from the difference in length between individual ITO wiring patterns, the method which changes the pattern width in correspondence to the length of the ITO wiring pattern can be considered. For example, considering the case where the ITO wiring pattern 11c in said connection part 11C for the scanning line 11a in the middle portion among the 100 scanning lines 11a has a wiring length of 5 mm and a pattern width of 20 μm, and the wiring length of the ITO wiring pattern 11c at the substrate upper or lower end is 10 mm, increasing the width of the ITO wiring pattern 11c from said scanning line 11a in the middle portion toward the scanning line 11a at the upper or lower end to 40 μm in increments of 0.4 μm allows compensation for the change in resistance value that results from the difference in wiring length in said connection part 11C.
However, the actual ITO pattern has a tolerance for pattern width of as loose as ±1 μm or so, resulting in the deviation in resistance value being ±5% for a pattern width of 20 μm, and ±2.5% for a pattern width of 40 μm, thus it is difficult to actually carry out such a manufacturing step. In addition, such a method for adjusting the pattern width requires a tremendous number of design steps.
Patent literature 1: US Patent Publication No. 2001-050799
Patent literature 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-162647
Patent literature 3: Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-221536
Patent literature 4: Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 62-124529
One aspect of the present invention provides a display apparatus, comprising:
a substrate;
a first electrode group made up of a plurality of electrode patterns which are arranged adjacent to one another on said substrate, and extend in a first direction;
a second electrode group made up of a plurality of electrode patterns which are arranged adjacent to one another on said substrate, and extend in a second direction which is different from said first direction; and
a plurality of display elements which are each formed in correspondence to the intersection point of one electrode pattern among said first electrode group and one electrode pattern among said second electrode group,
wherein
at least said first electrode group includes a plurality of electrode patterns which are each connected to a drive circuit at one end, and are different in length from said one end to the other end,
each of said plurality of electrode patterns has a lamination structure which has a first conductor having a first sheet resistivity, and a second conductor having a second sheet resistivity lower than said first sheet resistivity,
each of said plurality of electrode patterns is provided with a higher resistance region where said second conductor is removed, and
the length of said higher resistance region is changed according to the length of said electrode pattern for each of said plurality of electrode patterns.
According to the present invention, even in the case where the overall length of said electrode pattern is changed for each of the electrode patterns constituting said first electrode group, and as a result of this, the resistance value for the overall length of the electrode pattern constituting said first electrode group is changed for each electrode pattern, the length of said second conductor is changed according to the overall length of said electrode pattern, whereby such a change in resistance value can be compensated for, which allows more uniform display to be realized with a display apparatus.
The other problems to be solved by the present invention and the other features of the present invention will be clarified by a detailed explanation of the present invention that will be hereinbelow given with reference to the drawings.
Referring to
Further, to said substrate 21, a drive circuit 22A which selectively drives one of said scanning lines 21a, and a drive circuit 22B which selectively drives one or more than one of said data lines 21b are connected.
Then, by selecting one scanning line 21a with said drive circuit 22A, and selecting one data line 21b or a plurality of data lines 21b with said drive circuit 22B, one pixel or a plurality of pixels corresponding to the intersection point(s) between said selected scanning line 21a and data line(s) 21b emit(s) light simultaneously.
Referring to
The space between organic EL devices 20E thus arranged in the shape of a matrix is filled with an insulating film (not shown), and further a cathode 20D made up of Al, or the like, is formed such that it connects a group of organic EL devices which are aligned in the X direction, of said organic 20E devices. Said cathode 20D constitutes the scanning line 21a in the configuration as shown in
Referring to
More specifically, said connection part 21C is constituted by a segment A where the wiring pattern 21c which extends from the end of said scanning line 21a extends slantwise with respect to the extending direction (the X direction) in said display region 21A, and the segment B where said wiring pattern 21c extends back in said X direction at the end of said segment A to be continued to a terminal part 21T for connection to said drive circuit 22A, and in either of the segments A, B, the wiring patterns 21c which correspond to the different scanning lines 21a extend in parallel with one another.
In
As a result of making such a configuration, the wiring length in said segment A linearly decreases from the wiring pattern 21c on the outermost side toward the shortest wiring pattern 21c in the middle portion, and the wiring length in the segment B linearly increases from the wiring pattern 21c on the outermost side toward the shortest wiring pattern 21c in the middle portion.
In the present embodiment, said segment B is further divided into a first segment B, and a second segment B2, and as shown in
In this way, in the present invention, by selectively removing said Cr film 21a2 having a lower resistance in said second segment B2, equivalent resistance elements are inserted into said segment B2. In this case, in the present embodiment, by adjusting the length in said segment B2 rather than adjusting the width Wa of the pattern 21a, as shown in
Hereinbelow, the specific procedure for performing such a trimming operation will be described.
Referring back to
On the other hand, the length Lb (mm) of the segment B is also linearly changed, providing a maximum at the center of the wiring group, and zero at the outermost end of the wiring group. Then, if the Lb at the center of the wiring group is Lbmax, the kth wiring length Lbk is expressed by either of the following equations:
In the configuration in
As previously stated, the segment B is constituted by the segment B, (corresponding to
In addition, assuming that the sheet resistivity of said ITO film 21 as is Rito (Ω/□); the sheet resistivity of the Cr film 21a2 is Raux (Ω/□); and the line width for said segment A is Wa (mm); and the line width for said segment B is Wb (mm), then, the wiring resistance Rak, Rbk for said segment A, B is given by the following equations, respectively.
Then, the resistance Rk of the wiring in the connection part 21C that corresponds to the kth scanning line 21a is given by the following equation:
Rk=Rak+Rbk
Now, on the basis of the above description, the operation of providing a uniform wiring resistance (trimming) by using the Cr film 21a2 as an auxiliary wiring pattern is discussed.
Such an operation of providing a uniform wiring resistance involves determining the value of Lb1k, Lb2k that always gives a constant value of Rk in the above equation regardless of the value of k.
Herein, for simplicity, a range of 0≦k≦n/2 is taken, then the value of Lb2k for k=n/2, in other words, the pattern in the middle portion of the wiring group, i.e., the value of Lb2(n/2) is expressed by the following equation from the relational expression of Lb1k+Lb2k=Lbmax.
Herein, the following derivation is performed.
When k=n/2, the following relational expression is obtained.
Herein, assuming that
then, the following relational expressions are obtained.
Since the requirement that all the patterns must be equal in resistance is imposed, the value of the 0th Rak, i.e., Ra(0) after the trimming must be equal to that of the n/2th Rbk, i.e., Rb(n/2). Therefore, the following relational expression is obtained.
From this, the following relational expression is obtained.
By the way, when k=0, the value of Lb2k at the outermost end of the wiring group, i.e., Lb2(1) is 0, and the value of Lb2k is linearly changed from 0 to Lb2(n/2). Therefore, the length Lb2k of the kth wiring after the trimming is expressed by either of the following equations:
In this way, in the present embodiment, by determining the wiring length of the wiring pattern in the middle portion of the wiring group which extends from the scanning lines 21a in said connection part 21C, the operation of trimming the resistance value can be performed with ease.
In case where such an operation of trimming the resistance value is to be performed, the photomask for said wiring patterns in said segment B2 can be prepared in accordance with the wiring pattern data which has been obtained using the above equations, and thus there is no need for an extra number of manufacturing steps.
For example, assuming that the above parameters are given as: Lamax=10 mm, Lbmax=5 mm, Wa=20 μm, Wb=20 μm, Rito=10Ω/□, Raux=2Ω/□, and n=100, the above equations give the value Lb1(n/2), Lb2(n/2) of the wiring length in the middle portion (for the n/2th wiring pattern) in the segment B as Lb1(n/2)=4 mm, Lb2(n/2)=1 mm, and the synthesized sheet resistivity of Rito and Raux is calculated to be 1.67Ω/□, thus the wiring resistance in said segment B is found to be Rb1(n/2)=1.67×4000/20=334Ω, Rb2(n/2)=10×1000/20=500Ω.
Next, the deviation in resistance when a patterning error of ±1 μm has been caused in the present embodiment will be evaluated.
In case where, for the value of Lb1(n/2), Lb2(n/2) that has been obtained as stated above, the Cr film 21a2 is patterned shorter by 1 μm in said segment B1, and Lb1(n/2)=3.999 mm, Lb2(n/2)=1.001 mm, the wiring resistance in said segment B is Rb1(n/2)=1.67×3999/20=333.92Ω, Rb2(n/2)=10×1001/20=500.5Ω, the deviation in resistance value is −0.05%. Likewise, in case where, in said segment B1, the auxiliary wiring made up of said Cr film 21a2 is patterned longer by 1 μm, and the wiring resistance in said segment B is Lb1(n/2)=4001 mm, Lb2(n/2)=0.999 mm, the deviation in resistance value is +0.05%.
In this way, according to the present invention, the accuracy can be improved by two digits by adjusting the wiring length, as compared to the accuracy which is achievable by the width adjustment.
Referring to
Referring to
Said wiring pattern 41c is divided into the segment A and the segment B along the extending direction therefor as with said wiring pattern 21c, and the segment length Lak of the segment A is at maximum with the wiring pattern 41c which corresponds to the scanning line 41a in the outermost portion, while it is zero with the wiring pattern 41c which corresponds to the scanning line 41a in the middle portion.
In addition, said segment B is divided into the segments B1 and B2, and in the segment B1, the wiring pattern 41c has the same lamination structure as that of the scanning line 41a, of an ITO film 41a, and a silver alloy film 41a2, as shown in
Also in the present embodiment, as in the previous embodiment, the segment length Lb1k in said segment B1 of said wiring pattern 41c is trimmed, whereby, in said connection part 41C, the mutual difference in resistance value produced between scanning lines 41a is eliminated.
As said silver alloy, an alloy of silver and palladium or copper is used, whereby a sheet resistivity further lower than that of the Cr alloy can be realized. On the other hand, because the silver alloy tends to cause degradation in properties due to electromigration or oxidation, compared to the Cr alloy, thus as shown in
Hereinbelow, trimming to be performed on the connection part 11C in
As previously described, with the wiring pattern 41c which corresponds to the scanning line 41a in the middle portion, the wiring length La in said segment A is zero, while this wiring length La is linearly increased in proportion to the distance from said middle portion with the scanning line 41a on the outer side.
Then, assuming that the length of the wiring pattern 41c at the outermost end is Lamax (mm), the wiring length Lak of the wiring pattern 41c of kth from the middle portion (k=0) in said segment A is expressed by either of the following equations:
On the other hand, the length Lb (mm) of said wiring pattern 41c in said segment B is also linearly changed from the substrate middle portion toward the outside, and is at maximum with the wiring pattern 41c which corresponds to the scanning line 41a in the middle portion, while being zero at the outermost end. Then, assuming that the segment length Lb in said middle portion is Lbmax, the wiring length Lbk of kth from the middle portion is expressed by either of the following equations:
Herein, assuming that the sheet resistivity of said ITO film 41a1 is Rito (Ω/□); the sheet resistivity of the silver alloy film 41a2 is Raux (Ω/□); the width of said ITO film 41a1, i.e., the width of the wiring pattern 41c in the segment A is Wa; the width of the silver alloy film 41a2 in the segment A is Wa′; the width of the said ITO film 41a1, i.e., the width of the wiring pattern 41c in the segment B is Wb; and the width of the silver alloy film 41a2 in the segment B is Wb′, the wiring resistances Rak, Rbk in the segment A and B are expressed by the following equations, respectively.
And, the resistance Rk of the kth wiring pattern 41c in said connection part 41T is expressed by the equation: Rk=Rak+Rbk
Here, Lb1k and Lb2k express the wiring length of said wiring pattern 41c in said segment B1 and B2, respectively.
Next, the procedure for trimming said wiring length Lb1k, Lb2k will be described.
As in the previous embodiment, the purpose of trimming is to set said resistance Rk at the same value for all the patterns. Hereinbelow, for simplicity, the case where 0≦k≦n/2 will be handled.
Considering the wiring pattern 41c at k=n/2, i.e., that in the middle portion, the length Lb2k thereof, i.e., Lb2(n/2) is expressed by the following equation from the relational expression Lb1k+Lb2k=Lbmax.
In case where k=n/2, in the above relational expression:
assuming that:
the following equations are given.
Here, assuming that
the resistance Rak is expressed by the following equation:
However, from the requirement that, after the trimming, all the wiring patterns 41c must be equal in resistance, the value of the 0th Rak, i.e., Ra(0) must be equal to that of the n/2th Rbk, i.e., Rb(n/2).
Therefore, the following relational expression is obtained.
From this, the following relational expression is obtained.
Then, the above relational expression is obtained.
On the other hand, considering the wiring pattern 41c at k=0, i.e., the outermost end, the length Lb2k, i.e., Lb2(0) is zero, and the value of Lb2k is linearly changed from zero to Lb2(n/2).
Therefore, the length of the kth wiring after the trimming is expressed by either of the following equations:
Herein, assuming that the above parameters are given as: Lamax=10 mm, Lbmax=5 mm, Wa=20 μm, Wb=20 μm, Wa′=15 μm, Wb′=15 μm, Rito=10Ω/□, Rmax=0.2Ω/□, and n=100, said wiring length is calculated to be:
Lb1(n/2)=4.867 (mm), Lb2(n/2)=0.133 (mm).
Further, the synthesized sheet resistivity of Rito and Raux is calculated to be 0.196Ω/□, thus the wiring resistance for the wiring pattern 41c in said segment B is found to be:
Rb1(n/2)=0.260×4897/20=63.21Ω,
Rb2(n/2)=10×133/20=66.5Ω,
Next, the influence of a patterning error on the trimming in the present embodiment will be evaluated.
Assuming that the above-mentioned ideal wiring length Lb1(n/2), Lb1(n/2) has had a patterning error of −1 μm, the actual wiring length would be Lb1(n/2)=3.999 (mm), Lb1(n/2)=1.001 (mm), and in this case, the resistance would be:
Rb1(n/2)=0.260×4866/20=63.26Ω,
Rb2(n/2)=10×134/20=67Ω,
thus a deviation in resistance of −0.5% is expected to be caused.
Likewise, assuming that the above-mentioned ideal wiring length Lb1(n/2), Lb1(n/2) has had a patterning error of +1 μm, the actual wiring length would be Lb1(n/2)=4.001 (mm), Lb1(n/2)=0.999 (mm), and in this case, a deviation in resistance of +0.5% is expected to be caused.
In this way, also in trimming in the present embodiment, the trimming accuracy as high as ten times or over can be achieved, as compared to the accuracy which is achievable by adjusting the pattern width for trimming.
Referring to
In the above description, the case where, in said segments B1 and B2, the wiring length Lb1k and the wiring length Lb2k are linearly changed with the number k has been considered, however, when trimming is performed on the wiring length as with the present invention, occurrence of a slight patterning error has no significant influence on the fluctuating difference in resistance value as can be seen from
The connection part 21C or 41C in
Also in such a case, by removing said Cr film 21a2 with a lower resistance in said terminal part 21T, only the ITO pattern 21a1 is exposed, and the same sectional configuration as that in
Also in such a case, by removing said Cr film 21a2 with a lower resistance in said terminal part 21T, only the ITO pattern 21a1 is exposed, and the same sectional structure as that in
Also in such a case, by removing said Cr film 21a2 with a lower resistance in said terminal part 21T, only the ITO pattern 21a1 is exposed, and the same sectional structure as that in
Referring to
Then, by providing such a higher resistance portion(s) for the respective wiring patterns 21c according to the location of the corresponding scanning line 21a, in other words, by adjusting the number of higher resistance portions or the length thereof, the resistance value for said wiring pattern 21c can be adjusted according to the corresponding scanning line 21a.
Further, the present invention is applicable not only to the organic EL display apparatus, but also to any other display apparatuses of current drive type that are passive matrix driven, for example, plasma display panels (PDP), LED array display apparatuses, light sources, and the like.
Further, the present invention is applicable not only to the display apparatus of current drive type, but also to liquid crystal display apparatuses of passive matrix drive type or active matrix drive type.
According to the present invention, in the connection part where the drive electrodes extending in the display region of the display apparatus are converged to be connected to the drive circuit, the length of the auxiliary electrode is changed according to the length of the wiring pattern in such connection part, whereby the difference in resistance, i.e., the difference in amount of voltage drop produced between different wiring patterns in the connection part can be set at a constant value regardless of the location of the wiring pattern, and thus the display apparatus can be uniformly driven.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
JP04/004670 | Mar 2004 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/JP05/04471 | 3/14/2005 | WO | 7/9/2007 |