Patent Application
20130076712
This relates to sensors and, more particularly, to ambient light sensors for electronic devices.
Cellular telephones and other portable devices with displays such as tablet computers sometimes contain ambient light sensors. An ambient light sensor can detect when a portable device is in a bright light environment. For example, an ambient light sensor can detect when a portable device is exposed to direct sunlight. When bright light is detected, the portable device can automatically increase the brightness level of the display to ensure that images on the display remain visible and are not obscured by the presence of the bright light. In dark surroundings, the display brightness level can be reduced to save power and provide a comfortable reading environment.
If care is not taken, an ambient light sensor in a cellular telephone can be shadowed by an external object such as part of a user's body. When the ambient light sensor is shadowed, the ambient light sensor may not make accurate ambient light readings and the display brightness in the cellular telephone may not be adjusted properly.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved ambient light sensor systems for electronic devices.
An electronic device may have an adjustable electronic component such as a display with an adjustable brightness. Storage and processing circuitry in the electronic device may be used to gather ambient light data from ambient light sensors and may be used to control an adjustable electronic component accordingly. For example, an electronic device may use ambient light data to adjust the display brightness. Ambient light data may be gathered by multiple ambient light sensors. The device may process ambient light sensor data gathered using the multiple ambient light sensors to determine which ambient light sensor data best represents current ambient lighting conditions for the electronic device. Sensors that are shadowed due to the presence of a user's body or other external object can be ignored.
During sensor data processing operations, the device can discard low ambient light signal readings or other readings that appear to be erroneous due to shadowing. Sensor structures that detect the proximity of external objects may also be used in determining whether a given sensor has been shadowed. For example, in a device with a touch sensitive display, a touch sensor array in the display may have electrodes that overlap ambient light sensors. When a touch sensor signal indicates that an external object is covering one of the ambient light sensors, data from that ambient light sensor can be discarded.
The ambient light sensors may include a primary ambient light sensor such as a human-eye-response ambient light sensor and may include an array of secondary ambient light sensors such as non-human-eye-response sensors. The secondary ambient light sensors may be located on a display layer such as a thin-film-transistor layer and may be formed from deposited thin-film materials such as nanocrystal silicon (silicon-rich silicon oxide), amorphous silicon, or polysilicon. Secondary ambient light sensors may also be formed from separate light sensor structures such as integrated circuit light sensor structures bonded to the display layer or other support structure or light sensor structures formed from discrete packaged photodiodes that are bonded to a display layer or other support structure.
Readings from the primary ambient light sensor and processed readings from one or more of the secondary ambient light sensors may be compared to determine whether to use primary ambient light sensor data or secondary ambient light sensor data. If the primary ambient light sensor is shadowed, data from the secondary ambient light sensors may be used in adjusting the display or taking other suitable actions in the device. If the primary ambient light sensor is not shadowed, data from the primary ambient light sensor may be used in controlling the display brightness. Primary ambient light sensor data may also be used in calibrating the secondary ambient light sensors or taking other suitable actions.
Further features of the invention, its nature and various advantages will be more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.
Electronic devices such as device 10 of
Device 10 of
Device 10 may include a housing such as housing 12. Housing 12, which may sometimes be referred to as a case, may be formed of plastic, glass, ceramics, fiber composites, metal (e.g., stainless steel, aluminum, etc.), other suitable materials, or a combination of these materials.
Housing 12 may be formed using an unibody configuration in which some or all of housing 12 is machined or molded as a single structure or may be formed using multiple structures (e.g., an internal frame structure, one or more structures that form exterior housing surfaces, etc.).
In some configurations, housing 12 may be formed using front and rear housing structures that are substantially planar. For example, the rear of device 10 may be formed from a planar housing structure such as a planar glass member, a planar plastic member, a planar metal structure, or other substantially planar structure. The edges (sidewalls) of housing 12 may be straight (vertical) or may be curved (e.g., housing 12 may be provided with sidewalls formed from rounded extensions of a rear planar housing wall).
As shown in
Display 14 may, for example, be a touch screen that incorporates capacitive touch electrodes or a touch sensor formed using other types of touch technology (e.g., resistive touch, light-based touch, acoustic touch, force-sensor-based touch, etc.). Display 14 may include image pixels formed from light-emitting diodes (LEDs), organic LEDs (OLEDs), plasma cells, electronic ink elements, liquid crystal display (LCD) components, or other suitable image pixel structures.
Display 14 and the cover layer on display 14 may have an active region and an inactive region. Active region 22 of display 14 may lie within rectangular boundary 24. Within active region 22, display pixels such as liquid crystal display pixels or organic light-emitting diode display pixels may display images for a user of device 10. Active display region 22 may be surrounded by an inactive region such as inactive region 26. Inactive region 26 may have the shape of a rectangular ring surrounding active region 22 and rectangular boundary 24 (as an example). To prevent a user from viewing internal device structures under inactive region 26, the underside of the cover layer for display 14 may be coated with an opaque masking layer in inactive region 26. The opaque masking layer may be formed from a layer of ink (e.g., black or white ink or ink of other colors), a layer of plastic, or other suitable opaque masking material.
Device 10 may include input-output ports, buttons, sensors, status indicator lights, speakers, microphones, and other input-output components. As shown in
Ambient light sensors may be mounted at any locations within device 10 that are potentially exposed to ambient light. For example, one or more ambient light sensors may be mounted behind openings or other windows in housing 12 (e.g., clear windows or openings in a metal housing, clear windows or openings in a plastic housing, etc.). With one suitable arrangement, one or more ambient sensors in device 10 may be mounted under portions of display 14. For example, one or more ambient light sensors may be mounted under a display cover layer in inactive region 26 of display 14, as shown by illustrative ambient light sensor locations 18 in
Ambient light sensors may be mounted under ambient light sensor windows in the opaque masking layer in inactive region 26 or may be mounted in other locations in device 10 that are exposed to ambient light. In configurations in which ambient light sensors are mounted under region 26 of display 14, ambient light sensor windows for the ambient light sensors may be formed by creating circular holes or other openings in the opaque masking layer in region 26. Ambient light sensor windows may also be formed by creating localized regions of material that are less opaque than the remaining opaque masking material or that otherwise are configured to allow sufficiently strong ambient light signals to be detected. For example, ambient light sensor windows may be created by locally thinning portions of an opaque masking layer or by depositing material in the ambient light sensor windows that is partly transparent. During operation, ambient light from the exterior of device 10 may pass through the ambient light sensor windows to reach associated ambient light sensors in the interior of device 10.
One or more different types of ambient light sensors may be used in gathering ambient light sensor data for device 10. Ambient light sensors that may be used in device 10 include discrete silicon light sensors, discrete sensors based on other semiconductors, multiple sensors that have been integrated using a common substrate, amorphous silicon sensors, polysilicon sensors, and nanocrystal sensors (as examples). Nanocrystal sensors, which are sometimes referred to as silicon-rich silicon dioxide sensors, may be formed from clumps of silicon embedded in a dielectric matrix such as a silicon dioxide layer. Quantum tunneling effects may allow carriers to move within the nanocrystal sensor material. These are merely illustrative types of sensors that may be formed in device 10. In general, any suitable components in device 10 that can detect ambient light levels may be used in forming ambient light sensors for device 10.
The presence of infrared light and other light outside of the visible portion of the light spectrum may potentially disrupt accurate operation of ambient light sensors. This is because only light that is visible to the human eye will generally affect the need for changes to display brightness. Infrared light brightness in the ambient environment will generally not be detectable by the eye of a user, so infrared light brightness levels generally do not affect how bright a display should be to clearly display images to the user. To ensure an accurate human eye response, it may be desirable to provide one or more of the ambient light sensors in device 10 with optical filters. Device 10 may, for example, be provided with one or more discrete packaged human-eye-response ambient light sensors. A discrete packaged human-eye-response ambient light sensor may include two sensor elements. A first of the two sensor elements may be used to gather visible and infrared light. A second of the two sensor elements may have a filter that blocks visible light and may therefore be used to gather infrared light signals. Visible light data from the ambient light sensor may be produced by subtracting the data from second sensor element from that of the first sensor element. Other types of human-eye-response ambient light sensor may be used if desired (e.g., sensors with infrared-light-blocking filters, etc.). The use of a human-eye-response ambient light sensor having multiple sensor elements tuned to gather light readings from different portions of the light spectrum is merely illustrative.
A human-eye-response ambient light sensor may be installed in a location such as location 20 (e.g., in alignment with an ambient light sensor window in the opaque masking layer in region 26). Although a configuration in which there is a single human-eye-response ambient light sensor in region 20 of device 10 is sometimes described as an example, there may, in general, be any suitable number of human-eye-response ambient light sensors in device 10 (e.g., one or more, two or more, three or more, four or more, six or more, or ten or more). The configuration in which there is a single human-eye-response ambient light sensor in device 10 is merely illustrative.
It may not always be desirable to incur the cost associated with ensuring that an ambient light sensor has a human eye response. Rather, it may be desirable to include one or more non-human-eye-response ambient light sensors in device 10 to help reduce device cost and complexity. Sensors of this type may be provided in locations such as locations 28 (e.g., in alignment with respective ambient light sensor windows in the opaque masking layer in region 26). There may be one or more, two or more, three or more, four or more, five or more, or six or more non-human-eye-response sensors in device 10. A configuration in which there are six non-human-eye-response ambient light sensors in device 10 is sometimes described herein as an example.
If desired, other mounting locations for the ambient light sensors and other types of ambient light sensors may be used. For example, most or all of the ambient light sensors in device 10 may be human-eye-response ambient light sensors, all of the ambient light sensors may be non-human-eye-response sensors, etc. The mounting of a human-eye-response ambient light sensor in region 20 and six non-human-eye-response sensors in regions 28 is merely illustrative.
In configurations in which there are more than one ambient light sensor in device 10, one of the sensors may be used as a main or primary ambient light sensor and one or more additional sensors may serve as secondary ambient light sensors. For example, a human-eye-response sensor in a location such as location 20 of
A schematic diagram of an illustrative electronic device such as electronic device 10 of
Storage and processing circuitry 30 may be used to run software on device 10 such as internet browsing applications, voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) telephone call applications, email applications, media playback applications, operating system functions, etc. The software may be used to implement control operations such as real time display brightness adjustments or other actions taken in response to measured ambient light data. Circuitry 30 may, for example, be configured to implement a control algorithm that controls the gathering and use of ambient light sensor data from ambient light sensors located in regions such as regions 20 and 28 of
Input-output circuitry 42 may be used to allow data to be supplied to device 10 and to allow data to be provided from device 10 to external devices. Input-output circuitry 42 may include sensors 32. Sensors 32 may include ambient light sensors, proximity sensors, touch sensors (e.g., capacitive touch sensors that are part of a touch screen display or that are implemented using stand-alone touch sensor structures), accelerometers, and other sensors.
Input-output circuitry 42 may also include one or more displays such as display 34. Display 34 may be a liquid crystal display, an organic light-emitting diode display, an electronic ink display, a plasma display, a display that uses other display technologies, or a display that uses any two or more of these display configurations. Display 34 may include an array of touch sensors (i.e., display 34 may be a touch screen). The touch sensors may be capacitive touch sensors formed from an array of transparent touch sensor electrodes such as indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes or may be touch sensors formed using other touch technologies (e.g., acoustic touch, pressure-sensitive touch, resistive touch, etc.).
Audio components 36 may be used to provide device 10 with audio input and output capabilities. Examples of audio components that may be included in device 10 include speakers, microphones, buzzers, tone generators, and other components for producing and detecting sound.
Communications circuitry 38 may be used to provide device 10 with the ability to communicate with external equipment. Communications circuitry 38 may include analog and digital input-output port circuitry and wireless circuitry based on radio-frequency signals and/or light.
Device 10 may also include a battery, power management circuitry, and other input-output devices 40. Input-output devices 40 may include buttons, joysticks, click wheels, scrolling wheels, touch pads, key pads, keyboards, cameras, light-emitting diodes and other status indicators, etc.
A user can control the operation of device 10 by supplying commands through input-output circuitry 42 and may receive status information and other output from device 10 using the output resources of input-output circuitry 42. Using ambient light sensor readings from one or more ambient light sensors in sensors 32, storage and processing circuitry 30 can automatically take actions in real time such as adjusting the brightness of display 34, adjusting the brightness of status indicator light-emitting diodes in devices 40, adjusting the colors or contrast of display 34 or status indicator lights, etc.
Display structures that are used in forming images for display 14 may be mounted under active region 22 of display 14. In the example of
The display structures of display 14 may include a touch sensor array such as touch sensor array 51 for providing display 14 with the ability to sense input from an external object such as external object 76 when external object 76 is in the vicinity of a touch sensor on array 51. With one suitable arrangement, touch sensor array 51 may be implemented on a clear dielectric substrate such as a layer of glass or plastic and may include an array of indium tin oxide electrodes or other clear electrodes such as electrodes 50. The electrodes may be used in making capacitive touch sensor measurements.
Display 14 may include a backlight unit such as backlight unit 70 for providing backlight 72 that travels vertically upwards in dimension Z through the other layers of display 14. The display structures may also include upper and lower polarizers such as lower polarizer 68 and upper polarizer 64. Color filter layer 66 and thin-film transistor layer 60 may be interposed between polarizers 68 and 64. A layer of liquid crystal material may be placed between color filter layer 66 and thin-film transistor layer 60.
Color filter layer 66 may contain a pattern of colored elements for providing display 14 with the ability to display colored images. Thin-film transistor layer 60 may include pixel structures for applying localized electric fields to the liquid crystal layer. The localized electric fields may be generated using thin-film transistors and associated electrodes. The electrodes and other conductive structures on thin-film transistors layer 60 may be formed from metal (e.g., aluminum) and transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide. In the
Indium tin oxide traces or other conductive patterned traces that are formed on thin-film transistor layer 60 may also be used in forming parts of ambient light sensors 52. For example, a lower electrode in each ambient light sensor 52 may be formed from an indium tin oxide trace or metal trace such as trace 58. Ambient light sensors 52 in the example of
An opaque masking layer such as opaque masking layer 46 may be provided in inactive region 26. The opaque masking layer may be used to block internal device components from view by a user through peripheral edge portions of clear display cover layer 44. The opaque masking layer may be formed from black ink, black plastic, plastic or ink of other colors, metal, or other opaque substances. Ambient light sensor windows such as windows 48 may be formed in opaque masking layer 46. For example, circular holes or openings with other shapes may be formed in layer 46 to serve as ambient light sensor windows 48. Ambient light sensor windows 48 may, if desired, be formed in locations such as locations 18 of
As shown in
During operation of device 10, ambient light 74 may pass through ambient light sensor windows 48 and may be detected using ambient light sensors 52. Signals from ambient light sensors 52 may be routed to analog-to-digital converter circuitry on thin-film-transistor layer 60 and/or other control circuitry in device 10 such as one or more integrated circuits in storage and processing circuitry 30 of
Ambient light sensor signal routing paths on thin-film-transistor layer 60 may be formed using indium tin oxide conductors or other conductive paths formed on the upper surface of thin-film-transistor layer 60 (as examples). By depositing thin-film ambient light sensors 52 on structures in device 10 such as display layers (e.g., thin-film-transistor substrate layer 60), the cost of implementing multiple ambient light sensors within device 10 may be minimized. It may therefore be practical to include six sensors 52 (or other suitable number of sensors 52) within device 10. When multiple ambient light sensors are used in device 10, the likelihood of inadvertently shadowing all sensors simultaneously may be decreased and the likelihood of gathering an accurate ambient light sensor reading may therefore be increased.
The presence of an external object may shadow an ambient light sensor sufficiently that the ambient light sensor does not produce an ambient light sensor reading that accurately reflects the level of ambient light surrounding device 10. If a user places a finger or other external object such as external object 76 in the vicinity of an ambient light sensor, it may therefore be desirable to ignore the reading obtained with that ambient light sensor. Shadowing conditions can be detected by observing whether a sensor (e.g., one of secondary sensors 52) has a reading that is significantly lower than other sensors. If a low light level is detected, data from that sensor can be discarded.
Supplemental sensors may also be used to detect shadowing conditions. For example, a capacitive touch sensor electrode or a light-based proximity sensor that emits infrared light and detects corresponding reflected infrared light may be used to determine when an external object such as object 76 is in the vicinity of an ambient light sensor. When close proximity of object 76 is detected, sensor data from a nearby sensor may be ignored. As an example, one or more sensor electrodes such as capacitive sensor electrodes 50 of sensor array 51 may overlap ambient light sensors 52 or may otherwise be located in the vicinity of ambient light sensors 52. In this type of arrangement, capacitive sensor readings from electrodes 50 may be used to determine whether object 76 is located close to sensors 52. If a touch event is detected by a given one of sensor electrodes 50, data from the ambient light sensor that is located adjacent to that electrode may be ignored.
As shown in
In addition to accommodating driver integrated circuit 80, traces for distributing display control signals ambient light sensor signals, and primary ambient light sensor 82, the exposed ledge that is formed by the laterally extended portions of thin-film-transistor layer 60 that are not covered by color filter layer 66 may be used to support secondary ambient light sensors. As shown in
Ambient light sensor data signal lines such as lines 84 may be shared between multiple sensors using multiplexing circuitry of the type shown in
In devices such as device 10 with multiple ambient light sensors, ambient light sensor data from multiple ambient light sensors may be gathered and processed by storage and processing circuitry 30. Ambient light sensor data from multiple secondary light sensors such as secondary ambient light sensors 52 in
A flow chart of illustrative steps that may be used in controlling the operation of device 10 using ambient light sensors such as primary ambient light sensor 82 and secondary ambient light sensors 52 is shown in
During the operations of step 100, 102, 104, 106, and 108, storage and processing circuitry 30 may be used to gather and analyze secondary ambient light sensor data from secondary ambient light sensors 52 and may be used to produce corresponding processed secondary ambient light sensor data. With one suitable arrangement, storage and processing circuitry 30 may gather signals from each of secondary ambient light sensors 52 in sequence (e.g., starting with a first of sensors 52, proceeding to a second of sensors 52, and so forth).
Initially, for example, storage and processing circuitry 30 may be used in step 100 to gather touch sensor data or other proximity sensor data to determine whether or not a first of sensors 52 has been shadowed. Each of sensors 52 may, for example, be located adjacent to a different respective capacitive touch sensor electrode such as one of electrodes 50 of
Whenever touch sensor data or other sensor data indicates that the secondary ambient light sensor 52 that is being examined is not being shadowed, storage and processing circuitry 30 may store data (e.g., digital data) for the ambient light sensor reading from that ambient light sensor 52 in volatile memory or other storage within storage and processing circuitry 30 (step 104).
During the operations of step 106, storage and processing circuitry 30 may be used to determine whether to evaluate readings from additional secondary ambient light sensors 52. If, for example, it is desired to obtain readings from each of the six secondary ambient light sensors shown in
Once ambient light sensor readings have been obtained from all unshadowed secondary ambient light sensors (or other desired set of secondary ambient light sensors), the secondary ambient light sensor data may be processed (step 108) to produce a corresponding processed secondary ambient light sensor data reading. Examples of data processing techniques that may be used in processing the secondary ambient light sensor data include calculating an average of all unshadowed data readings, discarding one or more abnormally low readings (e.g., discarding readings that fall below a user-defined or default threshold value), discarding one or more abnormally high readings (e.g., discarding readings that are above a user-defined or default threshold value that is indicative of faulty sensor performance), computing an arithmetic or geometric mean, using a given number of the largest readings, curve fitting, using only the single highest reading, averaging the top several measured ambient light sensor values, or otherwise processing the ambient light sensor data from secondary ambient light sensors 52.
Secondary ambient light sensors 52 may not include optical filters or other structures for ensuring that secondary ambient light sensors 52 have a human-eye response. Accordingly, it may be desirable to include at least some ambient light sensor readings from a human-eye-response sensor such as primary ambient light sensor 82 of
At step 112, the processed ambient light sensor data from secondary ambient light sensors 52 (ambient light sensor data NC) may be compared to the ambient light sensor data from primary ambient light sensor 82 (ALS). Any suitable processing scheme may be used to compare the values of NC and ALS (e.g., schemes that compute a weighted difference between NC and ALS and compare this value to a threshold, etc.).
Primary ambient light sensor 82 may include first and second sensor elements each of which has a different spectral response. Sensor 82 may, for example, gather data from a first sensor element that is responsive to visible and infrared light (sensor element reading D1) and may gather data from a second sensor element that is responsive to infrared light only (sensor element reading D2). By computing the value of D1−K*D2, where K is a calibration factor, human-eye-response (visible light) readings may be produced. To enhance accuracy in a variety of lighting conditions, device 10 may vary the value of K as a function of different operating environments. For example, if the amount of ambient infrared light is high (e.g., if D2/D2 is measured to be greater than 0.5), the value of K may be set to a first value K1, whereas the value of K may be set to a second value of K2 when the amount of detected ambient infrared light is low.
In comparing NC to ALS during the operations of step 112, device 10 may use storage and processing circuitry 30 to set the value of ALS equal to D1−K*D2, using an appropriate K value and may compute the difference between NC and ALS.
If the magnitude of ALS is significantly lower than NC (e.g., if ALS is less than 10% of NC, if ALS is less than 25% of NC, or is less than another predetermined fraction of NC), storage and processing circuitry 30 can conclude that the primary sensor is shadowed. The predetermined fraction of NC that is used in determining whether the magnitude of ALS is significantly lower than NC may be established during a factory calibration procedure or may be determined as part of a periodic dynamic calibration procedure. Storage and processing circuitry 30 may then use the processed secondary ambient light sensor data that was produced during the operations of step 108 to adjust display brightness or may take other suitable actions based on the processed secondary ambient light sensor data (step 120).
If, however, the magnitude of ALS is not significantly lower than NC (e.g., if ALS is not less than 10% of NC, is not less than 25% of NC, etc.), storage and processing circuitry 30 can conclude that primary ambient light sensor 82 is not shadowed and is producing an accurate ambient light sensor reading.
When the main sensor reading is reliable, storage and processing circuitry 30 may calibrate secondary ambient light sensors 52 by using the primary ambient light sensor data as a calibration reference value during the operations of step 114. If desired, an initial calibration value for sensors 52 may be stored in storage and processing circuitry 30 based on a set of calibration measurements made during manufacturing (e.g., by performing tests on device 10 and loading default settings into device 10 in a factory). The calibration operations of step 114 may be performed to dynamically update the calibration of the secondary light sensors and thereby prevent errors due to long term drift. The calibration operations of step 114 may, if desired, involve calibration of the value of the predetermined fraction of NC that is used in determining whether the magnitude of ALS is significantly lower than NC.
Following calibration operations at step 114, storage and processing circuitry 30 may use the primary ambient light sensor data that was gathered during the operations of step 110 to adjust display brightness or take other suitable actions based on the processed secondary ambient light sensor data (step 120).
The foregoing is merely illustrative of the principles of this invention and various modifications can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.
