1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a touch display panel and a touch sensor structure thereof, and more particularly, to a touch display panel and the touch sensor structure thereof with a stage, which is constructed by supporting structures and sensing structures. The touch display panel and the touch sensor structure thereof have durability and good touch sensing sensitivity.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In all kinds of the consumer electronic products nowadays, the portable electronic products, such as personal digital assistant (PDA), mobile phone and notebooks, have adopted touch panel as the interface tool between users and electronic devices. The existing designs of the electronic products trend to being thin, light, short, and small, and therefore the product designs are hoped to conserve the space for the conventional input devices, such as keyboard and mouse. Specifically, by the popular demand for the user-friendly tablet computers, the display device combining touch panel is becoming one of the key components of all kinds of the electronic products.
Recently, attempts have been made to integrate a touch function into a liquid crystal display panel. The touch input function can be implemented by pressing the liquid crystal display and making the upper substrate of the display panel have a sagging deformation to generate a sensing signal. Please refer to
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It has been testified that the durability of the touch display panel 10 and the number of the sub spacers 402 have a positive correlation, that is to say, the more the sub spacers 402 are, the better the durability of the touch display panel 10 is. On the other hand, touch sensing sensitivity of the touch display panel 10 and the number of the sensor spacer 403 also have a positive correlation, that is to say, the more sensor spacers 403 are, the better the touch sensing sensitivity is. However, because the sub spacer 402 and the sensor spacer 403 of the conventional touch display panel 10 are independent structures disposed individually. As shown in
It is therefore one of the objectives of the present invention to provide a touch display panel and a touch sensor structure thereof for giving consideration on both durability and touch sensing sensitivity.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a touch sensor structure is provided. The touch sensor structure includes a first substrate, a second substrate, a first stage, and a conductive spacer. The first substrate and the second substrate are disposed oppositely. The first stage is disposed on the first substrate and faces the second substrate. The first stage includes at least one supporting structure, a sensing structure, and a conductive sensing pad disposed on the supporting structure. The conductive spacer is disposed on the second substrate, faces the first substrate, and is corresponding to the first stage.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a touch display panel is provided. The touch display panel includes a first substrate, a plurality of first gate lines, a plurality of data lines, a second substrate, a display medium layer, a plurality of first stages, a plurality of conductive spacers, a plurality of second stages, and a plurality of main spacers. The first gate lines and the data lines are disposed on the first substrate and are crossed to define a plurality of pixel areas on the first substrate. Each of the pixel areas includes a pixel display area and a pixel peripheral area, and the pixel peripheral area is disposed between the pixel display area and the neighboring first gate line. The first substrate and the second substrate are disposed oppositely. The display medium layer is disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate. The first stages are disposed respectively in one of the pixel peripheral areas of the first substrate and face the second substrate. Each of the first stages includes at least one supporting structure, a sensing structure, and a conductive sensing pad disposed on the supporting structure. The conductive spacers are disposed on the second substrate, face the first substrate, and are respectively corresponding to one of the first stages. The second stages are disposed in one of the pixel peripheral areas on the first substrate and face the second substrate. The main spacers are disposed on the second substrate and face the first substrate, wherein the main spacers are corresponding to and in contact with the second stages, respectively.
The first stage of the present invention includes a supporting structure and a sensing structure. The supporting structure and the conductive spacer can provide assistant supporting for prolonging the durability of the touch display panel, and the sensing structure and the conductive spacer can provide touch input function. Because the supporting structure and the sensing structure are integrated as a first stage, the present invention can dispose maximum number of the first stages with both assistant supporting and touch input functions in the limited number of the pixel peripheral areas so that the durability and the touch sensing sensitivity of the touch display panel are both improved. In other words, except for the position where the touch signal read-out switch devices and the second stages are disposed, the first stages with assistant supporting and touch input functions may be disposed throughout the first substrate. As a result, the present invention may accomplish the design of full sensor.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
To provide a better understanding of the present invention, preferred embodiments will be made in detail. The preferred embodiments of the present invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawings with numbered elements.
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The touch display panel 50 in the embodiment further includes a plurality of main spacers 66 and a plurality of conductive spacers 68. The main spacers 66 are disposed on the second substrate 54 and face the first substrate 52. The main spacers 66 correspond and contact the second stages 64, respectively, so that the touch display panel 50 can maintain a constant liquid crystal cell gap. The conductive spacers 68 are disposed on the second substrate 54 and face the first substrate 52. The conductive spacers 68 correspond to the first stages 62, and a gap is formed between the conductive spacer 68 and the corresponding first stage 62. Moreover, the surface of the conductive spacer 68 facing the first stage 62 is a flat surface but is not limited thereto. In this embodiment, the main spacers 66 and the conductive spacers 68 are made of the same material and patterned by the same process. For example, the main spacers 66 and the conductive spacers 68 can be made of a photo-sensitive insulated base 70A, and patterned by a lithography process. The surface of the conductive spacer 68 and/or the surface of the main spacer 66 may further dispose a surface conductive layer 70B, and the surface conductive layer 70B at least covers the surface, which faces the first stage 62, of the insulated base 70A. In this embodiment, the surface conductive layer 70B can also serve as a common electrode of the touch display panel 50, but is not limited thereto. For instance, the surface conductive layer 70B and the common electrode can also be conductive patterns which are not electrically connected to each other. Because of the design mentioned above, the main spacers 66 and the conductive spacers 68 may have substantially equal thickness but are not limited thereto. Moreover, other necessary devices for a liquid crystal display panel such as a black matrix BM and an overcoat layer OC may be disposed between the second substrate 54 and the main spacers 66 and between the second substrate 54 and the conductive spacers 68. Further, the second substrate 54 may also include a second alignment film PI2 covering the surface of the main spacers 66 and the surface of the conductive spacers 68. It is appreciated that the second alignment film PI2 has to expose the surface of the conductive spacers 68 which faces the first stages 62. In this embodiment, the second alignment film PI2 exposes the surface conductive layer 70B. Also, the conductive spacer 68 protrudes out from the surface of the second substrate 54 and has a height difference. Due to the height difference, when forming the second alignment film PI2, the second alignment film PI2 will not be formed on the surface, which faces the first stage 62, of the conductive spacer 68. Therefore, no extra process for removing the second alignment film PI2 is required.
The first stage 62 and the second stage 64 can be formed by stacking structural layers of different layers. For instance, the structural layers for forming the first stage 62 and the second stage 64 may be selected individually from the required layers for the liquid crystal display panel such as a first metal layer, a gate insulated layer, a semiconductor layer, a heavily doped semiconductor layer, a second metal layer, a passivation layer, and a transparent conductive layer, etc. In such a case, no extra masks are required to define the first stage 62 and the second stage 64. In this embodiment, the numbers of the constructing layers of the first stage 62 and the second stage 64 are different. For example, the stacking structure of the second stage 64 includes a first metal layer M1, a gate insulated layer GI, a semiconductor layer SE, a heavily doped semiconductor layer HSE, a second metal layer M2, and a passivation layer PV, while the stacking structure of the first stage 62 includes a first metal layer M1, a gate insulated layer GI, a heavily doped semiconductor layer HSE, and a transparent insulated layer TC (which is used as the conductive sensing pad 63). The layers of the stacking structure of the second stage 64 are more than the layers of the stacking structure of the first stage 62 so that the thickness of the second stage 64 is larger than the thickness of the first stage 62. The second stage 64 and the corresponding main spacer 66 construct the main spacer structure for maintaining the cell gap for the liquid crystal of the touch display panel 50, and the first stage 62 and the corresponding conductive spacer 68 construct the touch sensor structure for providing functions of both assistant supporting and touch input.
In the condition that the main spacer 66 and the conductive spacer 68 have substantially equal thickness, the main spacer 66 can contact the corresponding second stage 64 with a larger thickness so that the touch display panel 50 can maintain a constant cell gap for the liquid crystal. Because of the thinner thickness of the first stage 62, the first stage 62 will not contact the conductive spacer 68 when the touch display panel 50 is not pressed. Each of the first stages 62 includes one or more supporting structures 621, one or more sensing structures 622, and a conductive sensing pad 63 disposed on the sensing structure 622. The conductive sensing pad 63 is electrically connected to a source SReadout of the touch signal read-out switch device TFTReadout, and the conductive sensing pad 63 is disposed only on the sensing structure 622, not on the supporting structure 621. The conductive sensing pad 63 may be made of the same transparent conductive material as the pixel electrode 58 and defined by the same mask, but is not limited thereto. For example, the conductive sensing pad 63 can also made of a non-transparent conductive material. In this embodiment, a single touch signal read-out switch device TFTReadout is able to read the signals received by multiple conductive sensing pads 63 so that the conductive sensing pads 63 which share the same touch signal read-out switch device TFTReadout can be electrically connected to each other. For instance, parts of the conductive sensing pads 63 disposed on the same row can be electrically connected to each other by a connection line CL, and the connection line CL and the conductive sensing pads 63 can be made of the same or different conductive materials. Moreover, if the conductive sensing pads 63 that share the same touch signal read-out switch device TFTReadout are disposed on different rows, the conductive sensing pads 63 can be connected to each other by the connection line CL disposed in parallel to the data line DL. Furthermore, a first alignment film PI1 may be disposed on the first stages 62 and the second stages 64. The first alignment film PI1 may cover the supporting structure 621, and may be regarded as a part of the supporting structure 621. The first alignment film PI1, however, has to expose the conductive sensing pad 63. In this embodiment, there are a first gap h1 formed between the conductive spacer 68 and the conductive sensing pad 63, and a second gap h2 formed between the conductive spacer 68 and the supporting structure 621. The dimensions of the first gap h1 and the second gap h2 may be respectively adjusted to be equal or not, based on factors such as the required sub-supporting force, the elasticity of the second substrate 54, and the touch sensing sensitivity. In one embodiment, such as when the conductive sensing pad 63 uses ITO (indium tin oxide) as its transparent conductive material and the thickness is between 700 Å (angstrom) and 800 Å and when the thickness of the first alignment film PI1 is between 300 Å and 400 Å, the first gap h1 will be less than the second gap h2. When implementing touch input by pressing the touch display panel 50, the sagging conductive spacer 68 will contact the supporting structure 621 of the first stage 62, and the supporting structure 621 will provide a sub-supporting force. Therefore, the durability of the touch display panel 50 can be prolonged. On the other hand, the surface conductive layer 70B of the sagging conductive spacer 68 will also contact the conductive sensing pad 63 disposed above the sensing structure 622 when pressing the touch display panel 50. Meanwhile, the touch input signal of the conductive spacer 68 will flow toward the touch signal read-out switch device TFTReadout and reach the amplifier (which is not shown in the figure) through the conductive sensing pad 63 and the connection line CL, and thus the exact touch input position can be calculated by the a calculating unit (which is not shown in the figure).
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The touch display panel and the touch sensor structure of the present invention are not limited to the above embodiment, and may have other embodiments or variations. Other embodiments and variation embodiments of the present invention are described below, and in order to compare the difference between the embodiments and to describe briefly, same components are denoted by same numerals, and repeated parts are not redundantly described.
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Accordingly, the touch sensor structure of the present invention may provide dual functions of auxiliary supporting and touch input. Therefore, instead of making a choice between the numbers of the sub spacers and the numbers of the sensing spacers, the maximum numbers of the first stages having dual functions of auxiliary supporting and touch input can be disposed in the limited numbers of the pixel peripheral areas. Thus, the durability and the touch sensing sensitivity of the touch display panel are both greatly improved at the same time.
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 invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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099119080 | Jun 2010 | TW | national |