Patent Application
20170269746
Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a field of touch display technology, and more particularly, to an in-cell touch screen and a display device.
Description of the Related Art
With a rapid development of display technology, a touch screen has been gradually widely used in people's life. Currently, the touch screen can be divided into according to the component and structure thereof: Add-On Mode Touch Screen, On-Cell Touch Screen and In-Cell Touch Screen. The add-on mode touch screen is generally a liquid crystal display screen with a touch function, which is formed by producing separately a touch screen and a liquid crystal display screen in different production lines and assembling them together. The add-on mode touch screen presents some shortcomings, such as a relatively higher manufacturing cost, a relatively lower light transmittance, and a relatively thicker module. The in-cell touch screen is generally formed by embedding touch electrodes of the touch screen within a liquid crystal display screen. In this way, it not only can reduce overall thickness of the module, but also can greatly reduce the manufacturing cost of the touch screen, therefore, such an in-cell touch screen is more and more significantly favored by major panel manufacturers.
At present, a conventional capacitive in-cell touch screen is generally achieved by directly additionally arranging touch scanning lines and touch sensing lines on a conventional TFT (Thin Film Transistor) array substrate, i.e., manufacturing two layers of straight metal electrodes, which are located in different planes with projections thereof on the array substrate intersecting with each other, on a surface of the TFT array substrate, as shown in
However, in the above conventional capacitive in-cell touch screen, it is relatively small for the mutual capacitance generated between the touch sensing line and the touch driving line, thus the change of the mutual capacitance due to the effect of the electric field from the body on the capacitive in-cell touch screen is relatively small. In this case, when the body makes contact with the touch screen, the change of the voltage signal obtained by coupling on the touch sensing line is small, so that the sensitivity of the touch screen is very low.
In order to at least partially overcome the above drawbacks and/or shortcomings in the above-described prior art, embodiments of the present disclosure provide an in-cell touch screen and a display device, so as to improve the sensitivity of the capacitive in-cell touch screen when being touched.
The embodiment of the present disclosure provides an in-cell touch screen, comprising: an array substrate and an opposite substrate arranged opposite to the array substrate; and a common electrode layer located on a side of the opposite substrate facing the array substrate or a side of the array substrate facing the opposite substrate, wherein the common electrode layer is divided into a first strip-shaped electrode and a second strip-shaped electrode, which are arranged alternately in a first direction and spaced apart from each other, and in a touch period, the first strip-shaped electrode and/or the second strip-shaped electrode functions as a first touch electrode;
wherein the in-cell touch screen further comprises a plurality of second touch electrodes, each of the second touch electrodes comprising a first sub-electrode and a second sub-electrode, which are sequentially connected with each other in the first direction in an alternate and orthographic mode, and each of the second touch electrodes being staggered with the first touch electrode;
wherein the first sub-electrodes extend in the first direction, the second sub-electrodes extend in a direction perpendicular to the first direction, and an orthographic projection of the second sub-electrode on the array substrate is located within an orthographic projection of the corresponding first touch electrode on the array substrate.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the in-cell touch screen further comprises a plurality of pixel units arranged in a matrix on the array substrate;
wherein the first direction is a column direction or a row direction of the pixel units.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in order to facilitate the implementation, the first direction is the column direction of the pixel units, in each of the second touch electrodes, two adjacent first sub-electrodes are located at two sides of a same column of pixel units, respectively, and two adjacent second sub-electrodes are located at two sides of a same row of pixel units, respectively; or
the first direction is the row direction of the pixel units, in each of the second touch electrodes, two adjacent first sub-electrodes are located at two sides of a same row of pixel units, respectively, and two adjacent second sub-electrodes are located at two sides of a same column of pixel units, respectively.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in order to facilitate the implementation, the first direction is the column direction of the pixel units, two adjacent first sub-electrodes in a same second touch electrode are located at two sides of a same column of pixel units, respectively.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in order to simplify the manufacturing process, the second touch electrodes are located on the side of the array substrate facing the opposite substrate; and
the first direction is the column direction of the pixel units, the second touch electrodes function as a data line of the associated column of pixel units in a display period.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in order to ensure an aperture ratio, the in-cell touch screen further comprises a black matrix arranged on the side of the array substrate facing the opposite substrate or the side of the opposite substrate facing the array substrate; and
wherein an orthographic projection of the second touch electrode on the array substrate is located within an orthographic projection of the black matrix on the array substrate.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the first touch electrode is a touch driving electrode, and the second touch electrode is a touch sensing electrode; or
the first touch electrode is a touch sensing electrode, and the second touch electrode is a touch driving electrode.
Correspondingly, the embodiment of the present disclosure also provides a display device, comprising any one of the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screens.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the display device is a liquid crystal display or an organic electroluminescent display.
In the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screens and display devices, each of the second touch electrodes staggered with the first touch electrode is composed of first sub-electrodes and second sub-electrodes, which are sequentially connected with each other in the first direction in an alternate mode, and the first sub-electrodes extend in the first direction, the second sub-electrodes extend in a direction perpendicular to the first direction, and an orthographic projection of the second sub-electrode on the array substrate is located within an orthographic projection of the first touch electrode on the array substrate. Compared with conventional in-cell touch screen, the second touch electrode is made to be a sawtoothed line, it may increase the relative overlapping area between the first touch electrode and the second touch electrode, thereby increasing the mutual capacitance between the first touch electrode and the second touch electrode per unit area and improving the sensitivity of the in-cell touch screen when being touched. Furthermore, the first touch electrode is obtained by only changing the structure of the conventional common electrode layer, therefore, based on the conventional manufacturing processes, it is unnecessary to use additional manufacturing processes to separately manufacture the first touch electrode, thereby saving manufacturing cost and improving production efficiency.
Detailed embodiments of the exemplary in-cell touch screen and the display device will be described in detail below, in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. In the specification, the same or similar reference number indicates the same or similar component. The following description of the embodiments of the present disclosure with reference to the accompanying drawings is intended to explain the general concept of the present disclosure, but should not be interpreted as limiting the present disclosure.
In addition, in the following detailed description, for the purpose of explanation, many specific details are set forth to provide a comprehensive understanding for the embodiments of the present disclosure. However, obviously, one or more embodiments may be implemented without theses specific details. In other cases, well-known structures and devices are embodied in an illustration manner to simplify the accompanying drawings.
In the drawings, the thickness and the shape of the film in each layer are not representative of the real proportion of the in-cell touch screen, instead, they only schematically illustrate the content of the present disclosure.
According to a general concept of the present disclosure, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides an in-cell touch screen, as shown in
As shown in
The in-cell touch screen further comprises a plurality of second touch electrodes 03, each of the second touch electrodes 03 comprises first sub-electrodes 31 and second sub-electrodes 32, which are sequentially connected with each other in the first direction A in an alternate and orthographic mode, and each of the second touch electrodes 03 is staggered with the first touch electrode 02.
The first sub-electrodes 31 extend in the first direction A, the second sub-electrodes 32 extend in a direction perpendicular to the first direction A, and an orthographic projection of the second sub-electrode 32 on the array substrate 1 is located within an orthographic projection of the corresponding first touch electrode 02 on the array substrate 1.
In the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screen, each of the second touch electrodes staggered with the first touch electrodes comprises first sub-electrodes and second sub-electrodes, which are sequentially connected with each other in the first direction in an alternate and orthographic mode, and the first sub-electrodes extend in the first direction, the second sub-electrodes extend in a direction perpendicular to the first direction, and an orthographic projection of the second sub-electrode on the array substrate is located within an orthographic projection of the corresponding first touch electrode on the array substrate. Compared with conventional in-cell touch screen, the second touch electrode is made to be a sawtoothed line, it may increase the relative overlapping area between the first touch electrode and the second touch electrode, thereby increasing the mutual capacitance between the first touch electrode and the second touch electrode per unit area and improving the sensitivity of the in-cell touch screen when being touched.
Furthermore, the first touch electrode in the above-described in-cell touch screen is obtained by only changing the structure of the conventional common electrode layer, therefore, based on the conventional manufacturing processes, it is unnecessary to use additional manufacturing processes to separately manufacture the first touch electrode, thereby saving manufacturing cost and improving production efficiency.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screen, the first touch electrode may function as a touch driving electrode, and the second touch electrode may function as a touch sensing electrode; or the first touch electrode may function as a touch sensing electrode, and the second touch electrode may function as s a touch driving electrode. They will not be limited in the present disclosure.
In the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screen, the touch driving electrode is driven in a time-sharing manner. In a display period, the strip-shaped electrode is configured to be loaded with a common electrode signal, and in a touch period, the strip-shaped electrode serving as the first touch electrode is configured to be loaded with a touch driving signal, and the second touch electrode is used to couple with a voltage signal of the touch driving signal and make an output; or in a touch period, the second touch electrode is configured to be loaded with a touch driving signal, and the strip-shaped electrode serving as the first touch electrode is used to couple with a voltage signal of the touch driving signal and make an output. As for the above-described in-cell touch screen, it is driven in the touch period and the display period in a time-sharing manner, thus, on the one hand, the chip for display driving and the chip for touch driving may be integrated together so that the manufacturing cost may be further reduced, on the other hand, the time-sharing driving may eliminate mutual interference between display operation and touch operation, thereby improving image quality and touch accuracy.
The above-described exemplary in-cell touch screen may be applied to a liquid crystal display screen or an organic electroluminescent display screen, for example. They will not be limited herein. It should be noted that, if the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screen is applied to an organic electroluminescent display screen, the common electrode layer generally refers to a cathode layer in the organic electroluminescent display screen, which is connected to each organic electroluminescent pixel. Alternatively, in some organic electroluminescent display screen, it is an anode layer to be connected to each organic electroluminescent pixel. They will not be limited herein.
If the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screen is applied to the liquid crystal display screen, then it may be applied to a Twisted Nematic (TN) liquid crystal display screen, or an Advanced Dimension Switch (ADS) liquid crystal display screen, or a High-Advanced Dimension Switch (HADS) liquid crystal display screen, or an In-Plane Switch (IPS) liquid crystal display screen.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screen, the material of the second touch electrodes may be chosen from metal material or transparent conductive material, which is not limited herein. If the metal material is chosen to be as the material for producing the second touch electrodes, then it can effectively reduce the resistance of the second touch electrodes, thereby reducing signal-to-noise ratio for the signal to be transferred.
Furthermore, the above-described exemplary touch screen is driven in the touch period and the display period in a time-sharing manner, therefore, on the one hand, the chip for display driving and the chip for touch driving may be integrated together so that the manufacturing cost may be further reduced, on the other hand, the time-sharing driving may eliminate mutual interference between display operation and touch operation, thereby improving image quality and touch accuracy.
As an example, in the above-described in-cell touch screen, the second touch electrodes may be arranged on the side of the array substrate facing the opposite substrate, i.e., the second touch electrodes are arranged on the array substrate. Alternatively, the second touch electrodes may be arranged on the side of the opposite substrate facing the array substrate, i.e., the second touch electrodes are arranged on the opposite substrate. They will not be limited herein.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the array substrate is generally further provided with pixel units arranged in a matrix, and various strip-shaped electrodes formed from the common electrode layer generally extend in a column direction of the pixel units in the array substrate, that is, the first direction A is a row direction of the pixel units, or, various strip-shaped electrodes formed from the common electrode layer generally extend in a row direction of the pixel units in the array substrate, that is, the first direction A is a column direction of the pixel units. Obviously, the various strip-shaped electrodes may extend in any other direction, which is not limited herein.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in the above-described in-cell touch screen, as shown in
As shown in
Alternatively, as shown in
In a specific example, in order not to affect the normal display function, a dividing line is generally configured to keep away from an opening area for display when dividing the common electrode layer. Therefore, in the above-described in-cell touch screen according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, if the first direction is the column direction of the pixel units, then the common electrode layer may be divided at the area corresponding to a gap between adjacent rows of pixel units; if the first direction is the row direction of the pixel units, then the common electrode layer may be divided at the area corresponding to a gap between adjacent columns of pixel units. That is to say, an orthographic projection of a gap between various strip-shaped electrodes on the array substrate is generally located within the gap between pixel units.
As an example, in the above-described in-cell touch screen, as shown in
Alternatively, as shown in
As an example, in the above-described in-cell touch screen, as shown in
Alternatively, as shown in
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in the above-described in-cell touch screen, as shown in
The density and the width of the touch driving electrode and the touch sensing electrode may be chosen according to the required touch accuracy. As an example, the accuracy of the touch screen is typically at the level of millimeter, therefore, for example, the optimized width of the touch driving electrode and the touch sensing electrode is set to be as 5-7 mm. On the other hand, the accuracy of the display screen is generally at the level of micrometer, therefore, one first touch electrode generally covers many rows or columns of pixel units, and one second touch electrode is generally arranged by an interval of many columns or rows of pixel units. The accuracy in the embodiment of the present disclosure refers to the size of a touch unit in the touch screen or a pixel unit of the display screen.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, in the above-described in-cell touch screen, it further comprises a black matrix arranged on the side of the array substrate facing the opposite substrate or the side of the opposite substrate facing the array substrate; and
wherein an orthographic projection of the second touch electrode on the array substrate is located within an orthographic projection of the black matrix on the array substrate. Thus, the second touch electrode is arranged within the black matrix, thereby it avoids the second touch electrode from affecting the aperture ratio of the display screen.
Based on the same general concept of the present disclosure, the embodiment of the present disclosure also provides a display device, comprising the above-described in-cell touch screen. The display device may be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a television, a monitor, a notebook computer, a digital picture frame, a navigator and any other products or components having a display function. The implementation mode of the display device may make reference to the above embodiments of the in-cell touch screen, which will not be repeated herein.
As an example, the display device is for example a liquid crystal display or an organic electroluminescent display, which will not be limited herein.
In the above-described exemplary in-cell touch screens and display devices, each of the second touch electrodes staggered with the first touch electrode is composed of first sub-electrodes and second sub-electrodes, which are sequentially connected with each other in the first direction in an alternate and orthogonal mode, and the first sub-electrodes extend in the first direction, the second sub-electrodes extend in a direction perpendicular to the first direction, and an orthographic projection of the second sub-electrode on the array substrate is located within an orthographic projection of the first touch electrode on the array substrate. Compared with conventional in-cell touch screen, the second touch electrode is made to be a sawtoothed line, it may increase the relative overlapping area between the first touch electrode and the second touch electrode, thereby increasing the mutual capacitance between the first touch electrode and the second touch electrode per unit area and improving the sensitivity of the in-cell touch screen when being touched. Furthermore, the first touch electrode is obtained by only changing the structure of the conventional common electrode layer, therefore, based on the conventional manufacturing processes, it is unnecessary to use additional manufacturing processes to separately manufacture the first touch electrode, thereby saving manufacturing cost and improving production efficiency.
It will be appreciated that the above-described embodiments are exemplary embodiments, and the scope of the present disclosure is not limited hereto. A change to the present disclosure may be made by the skilled person in the art, and the structures described in various embodiments may be freely combined without any conflict in the aspect of structure or principle.
Although the general concept of the present disclosure is shown and described with reference to several embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications or alternatives may be made to the present disclosure without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure, and these modifications and alternatives should fall into the scope of the present disclosure. The scope of the present disclosure is limited to the appended claims and equivalents thereto.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201510563831.4 | Sep 2015 | CN | national |
This application is a Section 371 National Stage Application of International Application No. PCT/CN2016/073712, filed on Feb. 6, 2016, entitled “IN-CELL TOUCH SCREEN AND DISPLAY DEVICE”, which claims priority to Chinese Application No. 201510563831.4, filed on Sep. 7, 2015, incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CN2016/073712 | 2/6/2016 | WO | 00 |
