This Application claims priority of the People's Republic of China Patent Application No. 201210429498.4, filed on Oct. 30, 2012, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an input interface and a manufacturing method of the input interface, and more particularly, to a touch panel and a manufacturing method of the touch panel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Touch panels have been applied in many consumer electronics recently. There are many diverse technologies of touch panel, and the resistance touch technology and the capacitive touch technology are the main touch technologies in portable electronic devices. In these touch technologies, sensing electrodes are used to detect variations of electrical voltage and electrical current around touch points, and connecting lines connected to the sensing electrodes along different axes are used to transmit signals for positioning the touch points.
In a conventional capacitive touch panel, a plurality of insulating blocks are disposed in crossing regions of sensing electrodes in different axes so as to electrically isolate sensing electrodes of different sensing axes and prevent signal interfering issues. Please refer to
One of the objectives of the present invention is to provide a touch panel and a manufacturing method of the touch panel. Conductive units are disposed on an upper side and a lower side of an insulating layer. The conductive units disposed on different sides are electrically connected with each other via holes formed in an insulating layer. Different axis electrodes extending in different directions and electrically isolated from each other may be formed accordingly. Because the conventional bridge design is not applied in the touch panel of the present invention, related yield problems caused by the bridge design may be prevented, and the product quality and the reliability may be enhanced accordingly.
To achieve the purposes described above, a preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a touch panel. The touch panel includes an insulating layer, a first axis electrode, and a second axis electrode. The insulating layer has a plurality of first holes and a plurality of second holes. The first axis electrode extends along a first direction, and the first axis electrode includes a plurality of first upper conductive units and a plurality of first lower conductive units. The first upper conductive units are disposed on an upper side of the insulating layer, and the first lower conductive units are disposed on a lower side of the insulating layer. Each of the first holes partially exposes one of the first lower conductive units, and the first upper conductive units are electrically connected to the first lower conductive units via the first holes. The second axis electrode extends along a second direction, and the second axis electrode includes a plurality of second upper conductive units and a plurality of second lower conductive units. The second upper conductive units are disposed on the upper side of the insulating layer, and the second lower conductive units are disposed on the lower side of the insulating layer. Each of the second holes partially exposes one of the second lower conductive units, and the second upper conductive units are electrically connected to the second lower conductive units via the second holes. Each second axis electrode is electrically isolated from each first axis electrode.
Another preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a manufacturing method of a touch panel. The manufacturing method includes following steps. Firstly, a plurality of first lower conductive units and a plurality of second lower conductive units are formed on a substrate. An insulating layer is then formed and covers the first lower conductive units and the second lower conductive units. A plurality of first holes and a plurality of second holes are formed in the insulating layer. Each of the first holes partially exposes one of the first lower conductive units, and each of the second holes partially exposes one of the second lower conductive units. A plurality of first upper conductive units and a plurality of second upper conductive units are then formed on the insulating layer. The first upper conductive units are electrically connected to the first lower conductive units via, the first holes, and the second upper conductive units are electrically connected to the second lower conductive units via the second holes.
In the touch panel of the present invention, the conductive units are disposed on the upper side and the lower side of the insulating layer. The conductive units disposed on different sides are electrically connected with each other via the holes formed in the insulating layer. Different axis electrodes extending in different directions and electrically isolated from each other may be formed accordingly. Since the conventional bridge design is not required in the touch panel of the present invention, related yield problems caused by the bridge design may be prevented, and the product quality and the reliability may be enhanced accordingly.
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.
Certain terms are used throughout the description and following claims to refer to the particular components. As one skilled in the art will understand, electronic equipment manufacturers may refer to a component by different names. This document does not intend to distinguish the components that differ in name but not function. In the following description and in the claims, the terms “include” and “comprise” are used in an open-ended fashion, and thus should be interpreted to mean “include, but not limited to . . . . ” In addition, to simplify the descriptions and make it more convenient to compare each embodiment, identical components are marked with the same reference numerals in each of the following embodiments. Please note that the figures are only for illustration and the figures may not be to scale. Additionally, the terms such as “first” and “second” in this context are only used to distinguish different components and do not constrain the order of generation.
Please refer to
In the touch panel 200 of this embodiment, the first upper conductive units 240X and the first lower conductive units 220X are disposed alternately on the upper side and the lower side of the insulating layer 230 along the first direction X, and the second upper conductive units 240Y and the second lower conductive units 220Y are disposed alternately on the upper side and the lower side of the insulating layer 230 along the second direction Y. In other words, each of the first axis electrodes 250X is composed of the first upper conductive units 240X and the first lower conductive units 220X disposed alternately along the first direction X and directly connected with each other via the first holes V1. Each of the second axis electrodes 250Y is composed of the second upper conductive units 240Y and the second lower conductive units 220Y disposed alternately along the second direction Y and directly connected with each other via the second holes V2. Accordingly, no bridge structure is required for electrical connection in the first axis electrodes 250X and the second axis electrodes 250Y which are used for touch sensing in the touch panel 200. Related yield problems caused by the bridge design may be prevented, and the product quality and the reliability may be enhanced accordingly. It is worth noting that a range of face to face between the first upper conductive units 240X and the second upper conductive units 240Y and a range of face to face between the first lower conductive units 220X and the second lower conductive units 220Y may become larger without the conventional bridge structures in touch panels, wherein the shape of conductive unit is preferably showed in
In this embodiment, the first lower conductive units 220X and the second lower conductive units 220Y may preferably include an identical conductive material, and the first upper conductive units 240X and the second upper conductive units 240Y may preferably include an identical conductive material, but not limited thereto. The conductive material mentioned above may include a transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide (ITO), indium zinc oxide (IZO), and aluminum zinc oxide (AZO), or other appropriate non-transparent conductive materials such as silver (Ag), aluminum (Al), copper (Cu), magnesium (Mg), molybdenum (Mo), a stack layer of the above-mentioned materials, or an alloy of the above-mentioned materials, but not limited thereto. In addition, the first lower conductive units 220X are electrically isolated from the second lower conductive units 220Y, and the first upper conductive units 240X are electrically isolated from the second upper conductive units 240Y. It is worth noting that, as shown in
It is worth noting that, in this embodiment, each of the first upper conductive units 240X may preferably include a first upper main part 240XA and a first upper protrudent part 240XB. The first upper protrudent part 240XB extends from the first upper main part 240XA along the first direction X. Each of the first lower conductive units 220X may preferably include a first lower main part 220XA and a first lower protrudent part 220XB. The first lower protrudent part 220XB extends from the first lower main part 220XA along the first direction X. Each of the first upper protrudent parts 240XB is electrically connected to one of the first lower main parts 220XA via one of the first holes V1, and each of the first lower protrudent parts 220XB is electrically connected to one of the first upper main parts 240XA via one of the first holes V1. Similarly, each of the second upper conductive units 240Y may preferably include a second upper main part 240YA and a second upper protrudent part 240YB. The second upper protrudent part 240YB extends from the second upper main part 240YA along the second direction Y. Each of the second lower conductive units 220Y may preferably include a second lower main part 220YA and a second lower protrudent part 220YB. The second lower protrudent part 220YB extends from the second lower main part 220YA along the second direction Y. Each of the second upper protrudent parts 240YB is electrically connected to one of the second lower main parts 220YA via one of the second holes V2, and each of the second lower protrudent parts 220YB is electrically connected to one of the second upper main parts 240YA via one of the second holes V2. Specifically, each of the first upper main parts 240XA, each of the second upper main parts 240YA, each of the first lower main parts 220XA, and each of the second lower main parts 220YA are preferably separated from each other and do not overlap with each other along a third direction Z perpendicular to the substrate 210. In this embodiment, each of the first upper main parts 240XA, each of the second upper main parts 240YA, each of the first lower main parts 220XA, and each of the second lower main parts 220YA are preferably rectangular shapes, but not limited thereto. In other preferred embodiments of the present invention, each of the first upper main parts 240XA, each of the second upper main parts 240YA, each of the first lower main parts 220XA, and each of the second lower main parts 220YA may also be designed in other shapes such as triangles, polygons, or irregular shapes so as to generate other required effects.
Please refer to
As shown in
As shown in
In this embodiment, the first upper conductive units 240X and the second upper conductive units 240Y are preferably made by patterning one identical conductive layer, but the present invention is not limited to this. In other preferred embodiments of the present invention, he first upper conductive units 240X and the second upper conductive units 240Y may also be formed by different conductive layers according to other design considerations. In this embodiment, the first upper conductive units 240X are electrically connected to the first lower conductive units 220X via the first holes V1, and the second upper conductive units 240Y are electrically connected to the second lower conductive units 220Y via the second holes V2. The first conductive layer 220 and the second conductive layer 240 in this embodiment may include a transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide, indium zinc oxide, and aluminum zinc oxide, or other appropriate non-transparent conductive materials such as silver, aluminum, copper, magnesium, molybdenum, a stack layer of the above-mentioned materials, or an alloy of the above-mentioned materials, but not limited thereto. It is worth noting that the first conductive layer 220 and the second conductive layer 240 are preferably made of the same conductive material, or materials of a contact region between the first conductive layer 220 and the second conductive layer 240 may preferably be identical so as to avoid problems caused by different materials in the contact region, but not limited thereto. For instance, when the first conductive layer 220 and the second conductive layer 240 are multi-layer structures respectively, a material of a top layer in the first conductive layer 220 is preferably identical to a material of a bottom layer in the second conductive layer 240, but not limited thereto. Additionally, the first upper conductive units 240X and the first lower conductive units 220X are aligned alternately along the first direction X and electrically connected with each other so as to form a plurality of first axis electrodes 250X. The second upper conductive units 240Y and the second lower conductive units 220Y are aligned alternately along the second direction Y and electrically connected with each other so as to form a plurality of second axis electrodes 250Y. Allocations and material properties of the components in the touch panel 200 have been detailed above and will not be redundantly described.
Please refer to
A manufacturing method of the touch panel 300 in this embodiment is similar to the manufacturing method of the first preferred embodiment. In this embodiment, a method of forming the first lower conductive units 320X and the second lower conductive units 320Y may preferably include forming a first conductive layer 220 on the substrate 210 and performing a patterning process on the first conductive layer 220 so as to form the first lower conductive units 320X and the second lower conductive units 320Y. In other words, the first lower conductive units 320X and the second lower conductive units 320Y are preferably made by patterning one identical conductive layer, but not limited thereto. In addition, a method of forming the first upper conductive units 340X and the second upper conductive units 340Y may preferably include forming a second conductive layer 340 on the insulating layer 230, and performing a patterning process on the second conductive layer 340 so as to form the first upper conductive units 340X and the second upper conductive units 340Y. In other words, the first upper conductive units 340X and the second upper conductive units 340Y are preferably made by patterning one identical conductive layer, but the present invention is not limited to this. A part from the shapes of each of the first upper conductive units 340X, each of the first lower conductive units 320X, each of the second upper conductive units 340Y, and each of the second lower conductive units 320Y in this embodiment, the other components, allocations, material properties, and the manufacturing method in this embodiment are similar to those of the first preferred embodiment detailed above and will not be redundantly described.
To summarize the above descriptions, in the touch panel of the present invention, the conductive units are disposed on the upper side and the lower side of the insulating layer. The conductive units disposed on different sides are electrically connected with each other via the holes formed in the insulating layer. Different axis electrodes extending in different directions and electrically isolated from each other may be formed accordingly. Since the conventional bridge design is not required in the touch panel of the present invention, related yield problems caused by the bridge design may be prevented, and the product quality and the reliability may be enhanced accordingly.
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. 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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2012 1 0435189 | Nov 2012 | CN | national |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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20100053103 | No et al. | Mar 2010 | A1 |
20110109532 | Choi | May 2011 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20140125882 A1 | May 2014 | US |