Patent Grant
11991496
The present application claims the priority of the Chinese patent application. No. 202010456438.6 filed with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) on May 26, 2020, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present disclosure relates to the technical field of display, in particular to a display panel, a display device and a fabricating method and a control method of the display panel.
With the development of science and technology, sound generation units are required to be disposed in various electronic devices. In the existing technology, the sound generation unit is usually disposed under a panel of a display panel. If a good sound generation effect is desired, the volume of the sound generation unit would be large, which would occupy a large space. If the volume of the sound generation unit is too small, a good sound generation effect cannot be achieved. Further, the sound generation unit is generally disposed in a corner and/or edge region of the display panel, thus the sound generation position is fixed, and a user cannot obtain a good hearing experience.
The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a display panel, including: a display assembly and a plurality of sound generation assemblies:
Optionally, a partial region of the vibrating membrane is a rigid substrate, and a remaining partial region of the vibrating membrane is a flexible substrate.
Optionally, the vibrating membrane includes a flexible substrate layer and an additional layer; wherein,
Optionally, the additional layer is integrally formed with the flexible substrate layer; or
Optionally, the vibrating membrane is a flexible substrate; or
Optionally, the support structure includes a rigid support structure and an elastic support structure, wherein the elastic support structure is disposed on a side of the rigid support structure close to the vibrating membrane.
Optionally, the drive part is a magnet, the motion part is a voice coil disposed on a side of the vibrating membrane close to the magnet, and the voice coil is disposed in the cavity.
Optionally, the drive part is a voice coil, the motion part is a magnetic film disposed between the vibrating membrane and the support structure, and the magnetic film covers the cavity.
Optionally, in the plurality of pixel units, a gap is formed between two adjacent pixel units; and
Optionally, the plurality of sound generation assemblies include at least one high-frequency sound generation assembly and at least one low-frequency sound generation assembly, and a frequency of an audio corresponding to the high-frequency sound generation assembly is higher than a frequency of an audio corresponding to the low-frequency sound generation assembly; and
Optionally, the vibrating membrane of the high-frequency sound generation assembly is a rigid substrate, and the vibrating membrane of the low-frequency sound generation assembly is a flexible substrate.
Optionally, when viewed in the direction from the vibrating membrane to the support structure, an area of a projection of the cavity of the low-frequency sound generation assembly on the vibrating membrane is larger than an area of a projection of the cavity of the high-frequency sound generation assembly on the vibrating membrane.
Optionally, the display panel includes a plurality of sound generation regions each provided with a plurality of sound generation assemblies, and each of the plurality of sound generation assemblies in each of the plurality of sound generation regions includes at least one of the high-frequency sound generation assembly and the low-frequency sound generation assembly.
Optionally, the display panel further includes an audio input control chip;
Optionally, the display panel further includes a base plate on which a plurality of the sound generation assemblies are arranged linearly or in a cross-shaped array.
Correspondingly, the present disclosure also provides a display device including the above display panel.
Correspondingly, the present disclosure further provides a method for fabricating a display panel, including:
Optionally, the method includes, before fabricating the vibrating membrane on the support structure, depositing sacrificial layer material on the material layer of the support structure and performing photoetching to form a sacrificial layer; and
Optionally, in the step of forming the mask layer, the mask material is photoetched according to a pattern of the cavity and the additional layer, and in the step of forming the support structure and the cavity of the support structure, a material layer of the support structure is first deep etched through a mask layer, so that the material layer of the support structure is divided into the support structure positioned at an edge and a middle portion in which the additional layer is to be formed, then the mask layer on the middle portion of the material layer of the support structure is removed by photoetching, and then the middle portion of the material layer of the support structure is subjected to deep photoetching to reduce a thickness until the additional layer and the cavity are formed in the middle portion of the material layer of the support structure, and wherein
Correspondingly, the present disclosure also provides a control method of a display panel for controlling the display panel described above; wherein, the control method includes:
To make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present disclosure more clear, the present disclosure will be described in detail optionally with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood that the described embodiments are not all but only a few embodiments of the present disclosure. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments disclosed herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.
The shapes and sizes of the components in the drawings are not to scale, but are merely intended to facilitate an understanding of the contents of the embodiments of the present disclosure.
Unless defined otherwise, the technical or scientific terms used herein shall have the ordinary meaning as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure belongs. The use of the wording “first”, “second”, and the like in this disclosure is not intended to indicate any order, quantity, or importance, but rather is used to distinguish one component from other components. Also, the use of the wording “a”, “an”, or “the” and the like do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one. The wording “comprising”, “including”, or the like, means that the element or item preceding the word comprises the element or item listed after the word and its equivalent, but does not exclude other elements or items. The wording “connected” or “coupled” and the like are not restricted to physical or mechanical connections, but may include electrical connections, whether direct or indirect. The wording “upper”, “lower”, “left”, “right”, and the like are used only to indicate relative positional relationships, and when the absolute position of the object being described is changed, the relative positional relationships may also be changed accordingly. The wording “orthographic projection” and the like refer to a projection viewed in a top-to-bottom direction in
As shown in
Specifically, referring to
Optionally, by arranging wires for the pixel units 12 on the vibrating membrane 21, the vibrating membrane 21 may be served as the display assembly substrate 11 of a plurality of pixel units 12.
Optionally, the pixel units 12 may be LED components, and the wires disposed on the vibrating membrane 21 may be LED wires.
In the display panel according to this embodiment, since the vibrating membrane 21 of the sound generation unit 2 and the display assembly substrate 11 of the display assembly 1 are the same structure, that is, the vibrating membrane 21 serves as the display assembly substrate 11 of the pixel units 12, a plurality of pixel units 12 are disposed above the vibrating membrane 21. When the sound generation unit 2 generates a sound, the vibrating membrane 21 and the pixel units 12 vibrate to generate a sound under the drive of the exciter 22. In other words, the vibrating membrane 21 and the plurality of pixel units 12 together form a vibrating membrane layer of the sound generation unit 2, so that the sound generation unit 2 and the display assembly 1 can be integrated to reduce a space occupied by the sound generation unit 2, and the display panel can be thinned. In addition, since a plurality of pixel units 12 are disposed on the vibrating membrane 21, the plurality of pixel units 12 and the vibrating membrane 21 together form a vibrating membrane layer. The plurality of pixel units 12 may also vibrate under the drive of the exciter 22, so that the display panel can realize sound generation from the screen.
It should be noted that the display panel according to this embodiment may further include a base plate 001 on which the sound generation units 2 are disposed. In other words, a side of the sound generation unit 2 facing away from the display assembly 1 is disposed on the base plate 001. A pixel driving circuit and a sound generation unit driving circuit may be disposed on the base plate 001. The pixel driving circuit is connected to a plurality of pixel units 12, and the sound generation unit driving circuit is connected to a plurality of sound generation units 2.
Optionally, an orthographic projection of the cavity 231 on the vibrating membrane 21 may be circular to reduce stress of the vibrating membrane against an inner wall of the cavity when the vibrating membrane 21 vibrates. Of course, the cavity 231 may have other shape, which is not limited herein.
Optionally, in fabricating the display panel, the vibrating membrane 21 may be first fabricated through a spin coating process on a side of the support structure 23. Thereafter, the vibrating membrane 21 is processed to fabricate the vibrating membrane 21 as the display assembly substrate 11. Then, a plurality of pixel units 12 are transferred on a side of the vibrating membrane 21 facing away from the support structure 23. Mask material is deposited on a side of the material layer of the support structure 23 facing away from the pixel units 12, and the mask material is photoetched according to a pattern of the cavity 231 to form a mask layer 003. The material layer of the support structure 23 is subjected to a deep etching process through the mask layer 003, to form the cavity 231 and the support structure 23. The motion part 221 of the exciter 22 is brought into contact with a side of the vibrating membrane 21 facing away from the pixel units, and the drive part 222 of the exciter 22 is disposed in the cavity 231. By the foregoing steps, a display panel with a sound generation unit 2 is finally formed.
Optionally, the frequency response of the sound generation unit 2 is closely related to the rigidity of the vibrating membrane 21, and different rigidity of the vibrating membrane 21 may correspondingly optimize audios of different frequencies. If the rigidity of the vibrating membrane 21 is small, the eigenfrequency of the vibrating membrane 21 is low, the low-frequency audio cut-off frequency of the sound generation unit 2 is low, and thus the ductibility of the low-frequency audio generated by the sound generation unit 2 is good. However, if the rigidity of the vibrating membrane 21 is small, when a medium/high-frequency audio is generated, partition vibration would easily occur under the excitation of the medium/high-frequency audio, and a peak or a valley is generated, which would seriously affect the sound quality of medium/high-frequency audio. Therefore, a vibrating membrane 21 of a relatively large rigidity is required for playing medium/high-frequency audio. In this embodiment, the vibrating membrane 21 of the sound generation unit 2 may have different rigidity, and several types of vibrating membranes 21 are described below as examples. In some examples, the vibrating membrane 21 of the sound generation unit 2 may be a flexible substrate. The flexible substrate has a relatively small rigidity and is easy to bend and vibrate under the drive of the exciter 22, thus the sound generation unit 2 of which the vibrating membrane 21 is a flexible substrate is adapted to play low-frequency audio. The sound generation unit 2 with a flexible substrate can expand the cut-off frequency of low-frequency audio, so that low-frequency audio has good sound quality. Thus, the flexible substrate of the vibrating membrane 21 may serve as a low-frequency sound generation unit.
Optionally, when the vibrating membrane 21 is a flexible substrate, the flexible substrate may be made of various types of materials, such as flexible polymers like polyimide, which is not limited herein.
In some examples, the vibrating membrane 21 of the sound generation unit 2 may be a rigid substrate. The rigid substrate has large rigidity and is not easy to bend and vibrate under the drive of the exciter 22, thus a sound generation unit 2 of which the vibrating membrane 21 is a rigid substrate is adapted to play high-frequency audio. A sound generation unit with a rigid substrate can prevent the vibrating membrane 21 from generating partition vibration under the excitation of a medium/high-frequency audio, so that the flatness of high frequency in a frequency response curve can be improved, and meanwhile the cut-off frequency of a medium/high-frequency audio can be increased, the ductibility of medium/high-frequency audio can be improved, thus the sound quality of medium/high-frequency audio is good. Hence, the rigid substrate of the vibrating membrane 21 may serve as a high-frequency sound generation unit.
Optionally, when the vibrating membrane 21 is a rigid substrate, the rigid substrate may be made of various types of materials, for example, the rigid substrate may be a glass substrate, which is not limited herein.
In some examples, a partial region of the vibrating membrane 21 of the sound generation unit 2 is a rigid substrate. In this case, the remaining partial region of the vibrating membrane is a flexible substrate.
Specifically, referring to
Optionally, a rigidity of the additional layer 211 is not less than a rigidity of the flexible substrate layer 212, By disposing the additional layer 211 in a partial region of the flexible substrate layer 212, the rigidity of the vibrating membrane 21 in the region where the additional layer 211 is located is increased. Thus, the additional layer 211 and the portion of the flexible substrate layer 212 corresponding to the additional layer 211 together form a rigid substrate of the vibrating membrane 21, while the portion of the flexible substrate layer 212 not corresponding to the additional layer 211 forms a flexible substrate of the vibrating membrane 21. In other words, the vibrating membrane 21 includes a rigid region S1 and a flexible region S2. The rigid region S1 is the additional layer 211 and the portion of the flexible substrate layer 212 corresponding to the additional layer 211. Thus, the rigid region S1 of the vibrating membrane 21 can prevent the vibrating membrane from generating partition vibration under the excitation of medium/high-frequency audio, improve the flatness of high-frequency audio in a frequency response curve, and meanwhile increase the cut-off frequency of high-frequency audio, and improve the ductibility of high-frequency audio. The region of the vibrating membrane 21 not covered by the additional layer 211 is the flexible substrate, i.e. the flexible region S2. Therefore, the flexible region S2 of the vibrating membrane 21 is adapted to play low-frequency audio, and expand the cut-off frequency of low-frequency audio, so that the sound generation unit 2 of this embodiment may be adapted to medium, high, and low-frequency audios.
Optionally, a central axis of the additional layer 211 may be aligned with a central axis of the cavity 231. In other words, the additional layer 211 is disposed in the middle region of the vibrating membrane 21. Only the flexible substrate layer 212 is disposed in an edge region between the additional layer 211 and the cavity 231, since the support structure 23 is in contact with the flexible substrate layer 212, the vibration resistance of the rigid substrate against the vibrating membrane 21 can be reduced.
Optionally, the material of the additional layer 211 may include various types of materials that have a relatively large rigidity, such as metal, and further may be a lightweight metal. For example, the material of the additional layer 211 may include at least one of aluminum and titanium. Of course, the material of the additional layer 211 may also be other materials, which is not limited herein.
Optionally, as shown in
Optionally,
Optionally, the material of the sacrificial layer 002 may be selected from the material having a large difference in corrosion rate from the material of the vibrating membrane 21, such as silicon dioxide (SiO2). The mask layer 003 may be formed of silicon nitride (Si3N4), and the mask layer 003 may be removed by photoetching when fabrication of the sound generation unit 2 is completed. The mask layer 003 may also be retained when fabrication of the sound generation unit 2 is completed, and the mask layer 003 may support the vibrating membrane 21 together with the support structure 23, which is not limited herein.
Optionally, as shown in
Optionally,
Optionally, the support structure 23 may be a glass substrate. Since the orthographic projection of the cavity 231 on the vibrating membrane 21 is circular, in step {circle around (4)} of
Optionally, since the support structure 23 is integrally formed with the additional layer 211, when etching the material layer of the support structure 23, the material layer of the support structure 23 may be penetrated due to an excessive etching depth, and thus damaging the flexible substrate layer 212 in the vibrating membrane 21. Hence, an etch stop layer may be provided between the flexible substrate layer 212 and the support structure 23 to protect the vibrating membrane 21 from being damaged. The material of the etch stop layer may be, for example, silicon oxide or silicon nitride.
In some examples, a method of fabricating a display panel includes: fabricating the vibrating membrane 21 on a rigid substrate (serving as a processing substrate) at first, then removing the vibrating membrane 21 from the rigid substrate, fabricating the support structure 23 having the cavity 231 separately, and fixing the vibrating membrane 21 directly to the support structure 23 in a tensioned state.
In some examples, a method for fabricating a display panel includes the following steps. First, an additional material layer is deposited on a processing substrate to form the additional layer 211. Then, the vibrating membrane 21 is fabricated on the processing substrate, and the vibrating membrane 21 is wrapped around the additional layer 211. Then, the vibrating membrane 21 is processed to fabricate the vibrating membrane 21 as the display assembly substrate 11, and a plurality of pixel units 12 are transferred on a side of the vibrating membrane 21 facing away from the processing substrate. The vibrating membrane 21 wrapped around the additional layer 211 is then removed from the processing substrate, and the removed vibrating membrane 21 is fixed on the support structure 23 with the cavity 231 in a tensioned state. Finally, the drive part 222 of the exciter 22 is disposed in the cavity 231, and the motion part 221 of the exciter 22 is attached to a side of the additional layer 211 facing away from the vibrating membrane 21. The drive part 222 drives the motion part 221 to vibrate, and the motion part 221 vibrates to drive the vibrating membrane 21 to vibrate.
As shown in
Optionally, the elastic support structure 232 may be made of a variety of flexible materials, such as foam or optical adhesive that has a low Young's modulus. Of course, the elastic support structure 232 may also be made of other material, which is not limited herein.
Optionally, the support structure 23 of the sound generation unit 2 may also be an elastic support structure. For example, if the sound generation unit 2 is directly adhered to the display assembly 1 by an optical adhesive (OCA), the optical adhesive may serve as the support structure 23 of the sound generation unit 2.
Optionally, the exciter 22 may include a moving coil type electromagnetic exciter or a moving iron type electromagnetic exciter, which is not limited herein. The exciter 22 includes a motion part 221 and a drive part 222, and a central axis of the motion part 221 (the direction from top to bottom in
Optionally, the drive part 222 of the exciter 22 may be a magnet, and the motion part 221 may be a voice coil. The voice coil is disposed at a side of the vibrating membrane 21 close to the magnet, and the voice coil is disposed in the cavity 231. The voice coil may be positioned in a position of the magnet having the strongest magnetic field, and the magnet is intended to drive the voice coil to vibrate, so as to drive the vibrating membrane 21 to vibrate.
Optionally, as shown in
Optionally, as shown in
Optionally, referring to
Optionally, the plurality of sound generation units 2 in the display panel may include a high-frequency sound generation unit and a low-frequency sound generation unit. The frequency of the audio corresponding to the high-frequency sound generation unit is higher than that of the audio corresponding to the low-frequency sound generation unit. In other words, the high-frequency sound generation unit can improve the ductibility of high-frequency audio, and the low-frequency sound generation unit can improve the ductibility of low-frequency audio. Since the directivity of a sound source increases as the frequency response increases, that is, the directivity of a high-frequency sound source is higher than that of a low-frequency sound, the number of high-frequency sound generation units 2 is larger than that of low-frequency sound generation units 2 in this embodiment, so that the sound generation position of the sound generation units can be controlled more precisely. The low-frequency sound generation unit may be disposed at various positions of the display panel according to application scenarios. For example, the low-frequency sound generation unit may be disposed in a corner and/or edge region or a middle region of the display panel, which is not limited herein.
Optionally, in the sound generation unit according to this embodiment, the sound generation unit 2 may be configured as a high-frequency sound generation unit or a low-frequency sound generation unit in various ways, as exemplified below.
In some examples, the vibrating membrane 21 of the high-frequency sound generation unit is a rigid substrate and the vibrating membrane 21 of the low-frequency sound generation unit is a flexible substrate. Since a rigid substrate can prevent the vibrating membrane from generating partition vibration, improve the flatness of high-frequency audio in the frequency response curve, and meanwhile increase the cut-off frequency of high-frequency audio and improve the ductibility of high-frequency audio, the vibrating membrane 21 of a high-frequency sound generation unit adopts a rigid substrate. Since the flexible substrate can adapt to low-frequency audio and expand the cut-off frequency of low-frequency audio, the vibrating membrane 21 of a low-frequency sound generation unit adopts a flexible substrate.
In some examples, as shown in
It should be noted that the rigidity of the vibrating membrane 21 of the sound generation unit 2 and the size of the cavity 231 may be adjusted according to a desired audio frequency band, which is not limited herein. Since high-frequency sound generation unit and low-frequency sound generation unit are both disposed in the display panel, the sound generation function of the display panel is suitable for medium, high and low-frequency sound sources simultaneously, thus the sound quality can be improved significantly.
Optionally, referring to
In some examples, as shown in
Optionally, as shown in
Optionally, when sound generation assemblies are disposed in each of the plurality of sound generation regions, the high-frequency sound generation assembly and the low-frequency sound generation assembly may also be other types of sound generation assemblies, such as speaker, and the like, which is not limited herein.
Optionally, the audio input control chip 51 may determine a sound generation region that is to generate a sound in various ways. For example, the audio input control chip 51 max determine a sound generation region by audio-video synchronization technique. For example, the display panel is playing a basketball game, the sound source target is positioned to the basketball, and the audio input control chip 51 determines the sound generation region that is to generate a sound according to the sound generation region of the sound generation unit 2 to which the pixel unit 12 corresponding to the movement position of the basketball on the display panel belongs, so as to realize the function that the position of the sound source follows the movement of the sound source target (for example, the basketball) and changes the sound generation position, namely, realize the audio-video synchronization function.
Optionally, the sound generation unit control chip 53 is connected to the region control chip 52 through a connection line. The connection lines in the same sound generation region have the same length, so as to ensure that the loads on the connection lines are the same, and further ensure consistency of audio signals received by the respective sound generation units 2.
Optionally, the plurality of sound generation units 2 are arranged on the base plate 001 in various ways. For example, as shown in
Optionally, as shown in
Correspondingly, this embodiment also provides a display device including the display panel described above. The display device may include various types, such as an organic electroluminescent (OLED) display device. The display device may be any product or component with a display function, such as a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a television, a display, a notebook computer, a digital photo frame, a navigator or the like. Other essential components of the display device are understood by those skilled in the art, and are not described herein nor should they be construed as limiting the present disclosure.
It should be understood that above embodiments are just examples for illustrating the principle of the invention, however, the invention is not limited thereto. Various modifications and variations can be made by a person skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and the scope of the present invention. These modifications and variations should be considered to be within protection scope of the present invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202010456438.6 | May 2020 | CN | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CN2021/094905 | 5/20/2021 | WO |
| Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| WO2021/238768 | 12/2/2021 | WO | A |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20200348796 | Chou | Nov 2020 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 103416043 | Nov 2013 | CN |
| 105096778 | Nov 2015 | CN |
| 109068249 | Dec 2018 | CN |
| 110366077 | Oct 2019 | CN |
| 110401905 | Nov 2019 | CN |
| 110572758 | Dec 2019 | CN |
| 110660318 | Jan 2020 | CN |
| 111491242 | Aug 2020 | CN |
| 2821844 | Jan 2015 | EP |
| 2821844 | Apr 2018 | EP |
| Entry |
|---|
| First Office Action dated Jan. 19, 2021 for application No. CN202010456438.6 with English translation attached. |
| Second Office Action dated Aug. 5, 2021 for application No. CN202010456438.6 with English translation attached. |
| Decision of Rejection dated Nov. 1, 2021 for application No. CN202010456438.6 with English translation attached. |
| Notice of Review dated Jun. 8, 2022 for application No. CN202010456438.6 with English translation attached. |
| Review of the Decision to Rejection dated Aug. 30, 2022 for application No. CN202010456438.6 with English translation attached. |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20220386019 A1 | Dec 2022 | US |
