The present disclosure relates to an electronic device, and more particularly to an electronic device including sensing units and display units.
With the technical developments of electronic devices, sensors with fingerprint identification function or other types of sensors are integrated into various electronic devices and widely used. Users can directly manage electronic devices through fingerprint identification. Additionally, fingerprints can be quickly identified and are difficult to forge; therefore, fingerprint identification technology can provide convenience and security. In recent years, industries have been dedicated to integrating fingerprint identification functions and display functions into the same electronic device while simultaneously improving the qualification rate of electronic devices.
An embodiment of the present disclosure provides an electronic device, which includes a substrate, a plurality of first pads, a plurality of sensing units and a plurality of test pads. The first pads are disposed on the substrate, the sensing units are disposed on the substrate and electrically connected to the first pads, and the test pads are disposed on the substrate and electrically connected to the sensing units.
These and other objectives of the present disclosure will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
The contents of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to specific embodiments and drawings. It is noted that, for purposes of illustrative clarity and being easily understood by the readers, the following drawings may be simplified schematic diagrams of electronic devices or a portion of the electronic devices, and components therein may not be drawn to scale. The numbers and dimensions of the components in the drawings are just illustrative, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure.
Certain terms are used throughout the specification and the appended claims of the present disclosure to refer to specific components. Those skilled in the art should understand that electronic equipment manufacturers may refer to a component by different names, and this disclosure does not intend to distinguish between components that differ in name but not function. In the following description and claims, the terms “comprise”, “include” and “have” are used in an open-ended fashion, so they should be interpreted as “including but not limited to . . . ”.
Directional terms such as “up”, “down”, “front”, “back”, “left” and “right” used in the present disclosure are only directions with reference to the drawings. Therefore, the directional terms are used for illustration, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure. In the drawings, each drawing illustrates the general features of methods, structures and/or materials used in specific embodiments. However, these drawings should not be interpreted as defining or limiting the scope or characteristics of these embodiments. For example, the relative size, thickness and position of each layer, region and/or structure may be shrunk or enlarged for clarity.
It should be understood that when a component or layer is referred to as being “on” or “disposed on” another component or layer, or “connected to” another component or layer, it may be directly on the another component or layer or directly connected to the another component or layer, or there may be an interposed component or layer between the two components or layers (indirect case). Conversely, when a component is referred to as being “directly on” another component or layer, “directly disposed on” another component or layer, or “directly connected to” another component or layer, there are no interposed components or layers between the two components or layers. In addition, the arrangement relationship between different components may be explained by the content of the drawings.
An electrical connection may be a direct connection or an indirect connection. When two elements are electrically connected, the electrical signals may be transmitted by direct contact, and there are no other elements presented between the two elements. When two elements are electrically connected, the electrical signals may be transmitted through the intermediate element bridging the two elements. When it is mentioned “one element is directly electrically connected to another element”, it means that the element is directly electrically connected to another element without other elements presented between the two elements.
Terms “equal” or “the same” usually mean within 20% of a given value, or within 10%, 5%, 3%, 2%, 1% or 0.5% of the given value.
Terms “first”, “second”, “third”, etc. may be used herein to describe various components, these components should not be limited by these terms. These terms may be used to distinguish different components in the specification. The same terms may not be used in the claims, and the components in the claims may be described by the terms “first”, “second”, “third”, etc. according to the order of the components presented in the claims. Thus, a first component discussed below may be termed as a second component in the claims without departing from the present disclosure.
It should be understood that according to the following embodiments, features of different embodiments may be replaced, recombined or mixed to constitute other embodiments without departing from the spirit of the present disclosure.
The electronic device of the present disclosure may include a display device, a backlight device, an antenna device, a sensing device or a tiled device, but not limited thereto. The electronic devices may be bendable, flexible or rollable electronic devices. The display device may include a non-self-luminous display device or a self-luminous display device, but not limited thereto. The antenna device may be a liquid crystal type antenna device or a non-liquid crystal type antenna device, and the sensing device may be a sensing device capable of sensing capacitance, light, thermal energy or ultrasonic waves, but not limited thereto.
Electronic components may include passive components and active components, such as capacitors, resistors, inductors, diodes, transistors, etc. The diodes may include light emitting diodes or photodiodes, but not limited thereto. The electronic device may include liquid crystal molecules, light emitting diodes (LED), quantum dot (QD) material, fluorescence material, phosphor, other suitable materials, or any combination thereof, but not limited thereto. The light emitting diode may include, for example, an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a mini light emitting diode (mini-LED), a micro light emitting diode (micro-LED) or quantum dots (QDs) light emitting diode (such as QLED, QDLED), other suitable light emitting diodes, or any combination thereof, but not limited thereto. The tiled device may include, for example, a tiled display device or a tiled antenna device, but not limited thereto. It should be noted that the electronic device can be any combination of the above devices, but not limited thereto.
A direction X, a direction Y and a direction Z are shown in the following drawings. The direction Z may be a normal direction or a top view direction. As shown in
Please refer to
A material of the substrate 100 may include glass, quartz, sapphire, polymer (such as polyimide (PI) or polyethylene terephthalate, (PET)) and/or other suitable materials to be used as a flexible substrate or a rigid substrate, but not limited thereto. Additionally, a shape of a top view of the substrate 100 is not limited to a rectangular shape, and the substrate 100 may have any suitable shape.
The electronic device 10 may include a plurality of sensing units SU, a plurality of display units DU and a plurality of signal lines disposed on the substrate 100, but not limited thereto. The sensing units SU and the display units DU may be disposed in the sensing region AR. In some embodiments, as shown in
The signal lines may be disposed in the sensing region AR and/or the non-sensing region PR. The signal lines may include a plurality of signal lines 102 (such as but not limited to switch signal lines), a plurality of power lines 104, a plurality of signal lines 106 (such as but not limited to reset signal lines), a plurality of signal lines 108 (such as but not limited to bias voltage lines), a plurality of signal lines 110 (such as but not limited to read out lines), a plurality of scan lines 101, a plurality of data lines 1031, a plurality of data lines 1032 or other signal lines. In some embodiments (as shown in
The signal lines 102, the scan lines 101, the signal lines 106 and the signal lines 108 may be extended in the direction X, and the power lines 104, the signal lines 110, the data lines 1031 and the data lines 1032 may be extended in the direction Y, but not limited thereto. The signal lines 102, the signal lines 106, the signal lines 108 and the scan lines 101 may cross the power lines 104, the signal lines 110, the data lines 1031 and the data lines 1032, but not limited thereto.
As shown in
The sensing element P1 may include a first end and a second end, the first end may be one of the P terminal or N terminal, and the second end may be the other one of the P terminal or N terminal. The first end of the sensing element P1 may be electrically connected to the signal line 108. In some embodiments, the signal line 108 may provide a bias voltage so that the sensing element P1 can be operated under a negative bias. The second end of the sensing element P1 may be electrically connected to a gate of the thin film transistor T1 and a second end of the thin film transistor T2.
The gate of the thin film transistor T1 may be electrically connected to the second end of the sensing element P1 and the second end of the thin film transistor T2. A first end of the thin film transistor T1 may be electrically connected to the power line 104. For example, the power line 104 may provide a VDD voltage to the thin film transistor T1, but not limited thereto. A second end of the thin film transistor T1 may be electrically connected to a first end of the thin film transistor T3. The thin film transistor T1 may be used as an amplification transistor to amplify the signal sensed by the sensing element P1, but not limited thereto. In addition, the first end and the second end of the thin film transistor mentioned in this disclosure may be, for example, a source and a drain or a drain and a source.
A gate of the thin film transistor T2 may be electrically connected to the signal line 106. For example, the signal line 106 may provide a reset signal to the thin film transistor T2. A first end of the thin film transistor T2 may be electrically connected to the power line 104. For example, the power line 104 may provide the VDD voltage to the thin film transistor T2, but not limited thereto. The second end of the thin film transistor T2 may be electrically connected to the second end of the sensing element P1 and the gate of the thin film transistor T1. The thin film transistor T2 may be used as a reset transistor and reset the sensing unit SU after the end of the sensing period or before the start of the sensing period.
A gate of the thin film transistor T3 may be electrically connected to the signal line 102, a first end of the thin film transistor T3 may be electrically connected to the second end of the thin film transistor T1, and a second end of the thin film transistor T3 may be electrically connected to the signal line 110. The thin film transistor T3 may be used as a reading transistor, and the thin film transistor T3 or the sensing unit SU can be controlled to output a sensing signal to the signal line 110 by the switch signal of the signal line 102.
In some embodiments, the sensing units SU may be used as fingerprint sensors, iris sensors, retina sensors, face sensors, vein sensors, motion sensors, gesture sensors or other suitable sensors or a combination of at least two of the above, but not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the sensing units SU may include touch sensing functions, but not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the sensing units SU may also include capacitance sensors, ultrasonic sensors, infrared (IR) sensors or other suitable types of sensors.
In some embodiments, each of the display units DU may for example be a sub-pixel, but not limited thereto. As shown in
The display units DU of the present disclosure are not limited to the liquid crystal display units, and the display units DU may also include other types of display units. For example, when the electronic device 10 is a self-luminous display device, the display unit DU may include at least the data line 1031, the scan line 101, two transistors, a capacitor and a light emitting unit, but not limited thereto. The light emitting unit may for example include an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a quantum light emitting diode (QLED or QDLED), an inorganic light emitting diode (LED), any other suitable light emitting element or a combination of the above. The inorganic light emitting diode may for example include mini LED or micro LED, but not limited thereto.
As shown in
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The signal lines 110 may be extended from the sensing region AR to the non-sensing region PR. As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
For example, a signal line 1101 may be electrically connected to a pad 1161, and the pad 1161 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in a transistor row TR1. A signal line 1102 may be electrically connected to a pad 1162, and the pad 1162 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in a transistor row TR2. A signal line 1103 may be electrically connected to a pad 1163, and the pad 1163 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in a transistor row TR3. A signal line 1104 may be electrically connected to a pad 1164, and the pad 1164 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in a transistor row TR4. In some embodiments, the signal lines 1101, 1102, 1103, and 1104 may for example output the sensing signals of the sensing units SU.
The signal line 1101 to the signal line 1104 and the pad 1161 to the pad 1164 may be electrically connected to one of the test pads 118 through thin film transistors TR in different transistor rows, and one of the test pads 118 may be electrically connected to four signal lines, thereby reducing the number of the signal lines or saving the space occupied by the signal lines. In other words, four pads (such as the pad 1161 to the pad 1164) may be electrically connected to one of the test pads 118 through the thin film transistors TR in four transistor rows (such as the transistor row TR1 to the transistor row TR4).
In addition, the pad 1161 to the pad 1164 may be connected between the test pad 118 and the sensing units SU, and the test pad 118 may be electrically connected to the sensing units SU. Furthermore, the number of the pads 116 may be greater than the number of the test pads 118.
In some embodiments, the thin film transistors TR in different transistor rows can be turned on by transmitting switch signals through different signal lines 124, and the test signals can be transmitted to the corresponding sensing units SU through the pads 116, thus the function of the sensing units SU can be checked through the test pads 118. More specifically, the pads 116 may be electrically connected to a driving unit 126, the driving unit 126 may provide test signals to the corresponding sensing units SU, and the test pads 118 may receive the test signals to determine whether the function of the sensing units SU is normal.
In some embodiments, the sensing units SU can be tested through the test pads 118 after the fabrication of the array substrate of the electronic device 10 is finished, or the sensing units SU can be tested through the test pads 118 after two substrates of electronic device 10 are adhered and the liquid crystal is filled. In this way, the unqualified products can be detected and the overall qualification rate of the electronic device 10 can be improved.
As shown in
In some embodiments, the driving unit 126 may be disposed on the substrate 100 by a die bonding method. In some embodiments, the driving unit 126 may be electrically connected to the pads (such as the pads 116) on the substrate 100 through a flexible printed circuit (FPC). In some embodiments, the driving unit 126 may be fabricated on a flexible film (i.e., chip on film (COF)) and electrically connected to the pads on the substrate 100.
In addition, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the data lines (such as the data lines 1031, 1032, and 1033) may be extended from the sensing region AR to the non-sensing region PR, and the pads used for electrically connecting the data lines may be disposed in the pad region 112. These pads may also be electrically connected to the driving unit 126, and the driving unit 126 may transmit the grayscale signals to the display units DU (such as the sub-pixels SP1, the sub-pixels SP2 and the sub-pixels SP3), but not limited thereto. In addition, in some embodiments, the electronic device 10 may further include a plurality of multiplexers disposed between the sensing region AR and the pad region 112 in the direction Y, and these multiplexers may be connected between the signal lines 110 and the pads 116, but not limited thereto.
The electronic devices of the present disclosure are not limited to the aforementioned embodiment. The following will continue to disclose other embodiments of the present disclosure. However, in order to simplify the description and highlight the differences between the embodiments, the same reference numerals are used to denote the same elements hereinafter, and the repeated portions will not be described again.
Please refer to
For example, the signal line 1101 (such as the signal line that can output the sensing signal) may be electrically connected to the pad 1161, and the pad 1161 may be electrically connected to one of the thin film transistors TR in the transistor row TR1. The signal line 1102 may be electrically connected to the pad 1162, and the pad 1162 may be electrically connected to one of the thin film transistors TS in the transistor row TR2. The signal line 1103 may be electrically connected to the pad 1163, and the pad 1163 may be electrically connected to another one of the thin film transistors TR in the transistor row TR1. The signal line 1104 may be electrically connected to the pad 1164, and the pad 1164 may be electrically connected to another one of the thin film transistors TS in the transistor row TR2.
The signal line 1101, the signal line 1102, the pad 1161 and the pad 1162 may be electrically connected to a test pad 1181 through the thin film transistor TR (and/or the thin film transistor TS) in different transistor rows, and therefore the test pad 1181 may be electrically connected to two signal lines. In other words, two pads (such as the pad 1161 and the pad 1162) may be electrically connected to one test pad 1181 through the thin film transistors (such as the thin film transistor TR and the thin film transistor TS) in two transistor rows (such as the transistor row TR1 and the transistor row TR2).
The signal line 1103, the signal line 1104, the pad 1163, and the pad 1164 may be electrically connected to a test pad 1182 through the thin film transistor TS (and/or the thin film transistor TR) in different transistor rows, and therefore the test pad 1182 may be electrically connected to two other read out lines. In addition, the number of the pads 116 may be greater than the number of the test pads 118.
In some embodiments, the thin film transistors TR and the thin film transistors TS in different transistor rows can be turned on by transmitting switch signals through different signal lines 124, and the test signals can be transmitted to the corresponding sensing units SU through the pad 1161 to the pad 1164, thus the test pad 1181 and the test pad 1182 can be used to check whether the function of the sensing units SU is normal.
Please refer to
In some embodiments, as shown in
For example, the signal line 1101 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in the transistor row TR1. The signal line 1102 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in the transistor row TR2. The signal line 1103 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in the transistor row TR3. The signal line 1104 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistor TR in the transistor row TR4. In other words, in some embodiments, the signal lines 110 may be electrically connected to the thin film transistors TR in the multiplexers 122 without using the pads 116. In addition, the signal line 1101 to the signal line 1104 may be electrically connected to a test pad 118 through the thin film transistors TR in different transistor rows, and therefore one of the test pads 118 may be electrically connected to four signal lines.
Refer to
In addition, the signal line 1101 and the signal line 1102 may be electrically connected to the test pad 1181 through the thin film transistor TR and the thin film transistor TS in different transistor rows, and therefore the test pad 1181 may be electrically connected to two signal lines. The signal line 1103 and the signal line 1104 may be electrically connected to the test pad 1182 through the thin film transistor TR and the thin film transistor TS in different transistor rows, and therefore the test pad 1182 may be electrically connected to the other two signal lines.
Please refer to
As shown in
The electronic device 10 may include a plurality of pads 128 (or may be referred to as the second pads) disposed on the substrate 100. The pads 128 and the pads 116 may be disposed in the pad region 112, and the pads 128 and the pads 116 (such as the pad 1161 and the pad 1162) may be arranged in at least one row along the direction X, but not limited thereto.
The data lines 1033 and the signal lines 110 may be extended from the sensing region AR to the non-sensing region PR. As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
In addition, as shown in
Please refer to
In summary, in the electronic device of the present disclosure, the sensor units and display units can be integrated into the sensing region, the test pads electrically connected to the sensing units can be disposed in the non-sensing region, the test signals can be transmitted to the corresponding sensing units through the first pads, and the function of the sensing units can be checked through the test pads. In addition, the test pads can be electrically connected to the signal lines through the multiplexer, thereby reducing the number of the signal lines or saving the space occupied by the signal lines.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the disclosure. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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202111649720.7 | Dec 2021 | CN | national |