Patent Application
20170228058
Field of the Invention
The application generally relates to a touch panel assembly and a portable electronic device. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a capacitive touch panel assembly and a portable electronic device using the capacitive touch panel assembly.
Description of Related Art
In recent years, along with the rapid advancement and wide application of information technologies, wireless mobile communications, and information appliances, conventional input devices such as keyboards and mice of many information products have been replaced by touch panels in order to offer convenience, small volume, light weight, and intuitional experiences to the users.
Touch panels can be categorized into resistive touch panels, capacitive touch panels, optical touch panels, acoustic wave touch panels, and electromagnetic touch panels according to the adopted touch-sensing techniques. Compared to other types of touch panels, capacitive touch panel offers quick response, high reliability, and high definition therefore is broadly applied to various handheld electronic devices. Generally, in a capacitive touch panel, a plurality of driving lines and a plurality of sensing lines are intersected to form a sensing array, so that a surface sensing effect can be achieved. As such, when a user touches the touch panel with a finger, the touch panel determines the position touched by the finger according to capacitance variation on the sensing array.
However, peripheral circuits of the touch panel or traces for connecting the electrodes take up layout space on the touch panel. Besides, a pad bonding region should be reserved around the touch panel to allow external circuits, such as a flexible circuit board, to be electrically connected to the sensing array, so as to input driving signals or output sensing signals. In addition, a physical key is often disposed at a periphery region of a portable electronic device. Thereby, when a user presses the physical key, a corresponding frequently used function can be activated quickly in order to shorten the time spent on searching and opening the function, but the disposition of the physical key also takes up the layout space of the touch panel.
The application is directed to a touch panel assembly, which utilizes the layout space on the periphery of the touch panel to dispose the physical key.
The application is directed to a portable electronic device using the above-mentioned touch panel assembly to reduce the overall size of the portable electronic device.
The application provides a touch panel assembly includes a touch panel and a flexible circuit board structure. The touch panel includes a sensing array, pads and connecting traces. The sensing array includes a plurality of sensing units. The pads are disposed on a bonding region of the touch panel, wherein the bonding region is located at a side of the sensing array. The connecting traces are located outside the sensing array and electrically connecting the sensing units and the corresponding pads to actuate the sensing array. The flexible printed circuit (FPC) board structure includes a plurality of bonding portions and at least one key portion. The bonding portions are extended to and disposed at the bonding region, and each of the bonding portions comprises a plurality of terminals electrically connected to the corresponding pads respectively. The at least one key portion includes a key circuit, and the at least one key portion disposed between any two adjacent bonding portions, wherein the bonding portions and the at least one key portion are arranged along a direction substantially parallel to the side.
The application provides a portable electronic device including a housing, a display module, a touch panel and a flexible printed circuit (FPC) board structure. The housing has an opening. The display module is disposed in the housing and the opening exposes a display surface of the display module. The touch panel is disposed on the display surface. The touch panel includes a sensing array, pads and connecting traces. The sensing an-ay includes a plurality of sensing units. The pads are disposed on a bonding region of the touch panel, wherein the bonding region is located at a side of the sensing array. The connecting traces are located outside the sensing array and electrically connecting the sensing units and the corresponding pads to actuate the sensing array. The flexible printed circuit (FPC) board structure includes a plurality of bonding portions and at least one key portion. The bonding portions are extended to and disposed at the bonding region, and each of the bonding portions comprises a plurality of terminals electrically connected to the corresponding pads respectively. The at least one key portion includes a key circuit, and the at least one key portion disposed between any two adjacent bonding portions, wherein the bonding portions and the at least one key portion are arranged along a direction substantially parallel to the side.
In light of the foregoing, in the present application, the key portion of the portable electronic device is disposed on the FPC board structure of the touch panel assembly. Moreover, the key portion and the bonding portions of the FPC board structure are arranged along the direction parallel to the side of the sensing array and connected to the bonding region of the touch panel, and the key portion is disposed between any two adjacent bonding portions. Accordingly, the key portion of the portable electronic device can be disposed at the bonding region of the touch panel along with the bonding portions, so as to save layout space of the touch panel. Thereby, the layout space at a periphery of the touch panel can be efficiently utilized, such that the layout of the touch panel can be more compact. In addition, the application may also improve the space utilization of the portable electronic device using the touch panel assembly, so as to facilitate in reducing the overall size of the portable electronic device.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the application, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the application and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the application.
In the present embodiment, the FPC board structure 100 and the touch panel 200 may be assembled together to form the touch panel assembly 50 shown in
In detail, referring to
Referring to
With such structural configuration, the key portion 112 of the application is disposed between any two adjacent bonding portions 122, such that the key portion 112 of the portable electronic device 10 may be disposed in the layout region of the touch panel to save the layout space for the connecting traces 230 on the touch panel 200.
Thereby, the layout space at a periphery of the touch panel 200 can be efficiently utilized, such that the layout of the touch panel 200 is more compact. In addition, the application may further improve the space utilization of the portable electronic device 10 using the touch panel assembly 50, helps reducing the overall size of the portable electronic device 10, and provides a physical key formed by the key portion 112.
Specifically, the key portion 112 may include a key circuit. In the present embodiment, in detail, the key portion 112 may function as a physical key of a smart phone. The key circuit may include a first key electrode pattern 112a and a second key electrode pattern 112b. Thereby, when a user touches the key portion 112 with his finger, capacitance variation occurs between the first key electrode pattern 112a and the second key electrode pattern 112b and a control signal is generated accordingly. Certainly, in other embodiments, the key portion 112 may also be a light sensitive key, strength sensitive key, etc. The application does not limit the types of the key portion 112 and the methods for generating the control signal. The key portion 112 may be located right below the light pervious pattern 16a shown in
It should be noted that the FPC board structure 100 may be embodied in a plurality of embodiments, which can all achieve the effect of the key portion 112 located between any two adjacent bonding portions 122 and arranged along the direction parallel to the side S1 with the bonding portions 122. Three of the embodiments are illustrated in detail hereinafter, but the embodiments of application are not limited thereto.
To be more specific, the first FPC board 110 may further include a first connecting portion 114 connected to the key portions 112. The key portions 112 protrude from the first connecting portion 114 and are extended to the bonding region R1 of the touch panel 200. Similarly, the second FPC board 120 may include a second connecting portion 124 connected to the bonding portions 122. The bonding portions 122 protrude from the second connecting portion 124 and are extended to the bonding region R1 of the touch panel 200. The first connecting portion 114 is stacked on the second connecting portion 124, such that the key portion 112 is located between any two adjacent bonding portions 122. Namely, in the present embodiment, the first FPC board 110 having the key portions 112 is stacked on the second FPC board 120 having the bonding portions 122, such that the key portions 112 are located between any two adjacent bonding portions 122. The key portions 112 and the bonding portions 122 are disposed collinearly at the side S1 of the touch panel 200 to form the FPC board structure 100 shown in
In addition, below the FPC board structure 100, there is a circuit clearance region A1 as shown in
In the present embodiment, the FPC board structure 100a may be integrally formed, and include a folding line L1 parallel to the side S1. The bonding portions 122 and the key portions 112 are located at two opposite sides of the folding line L1 respectively. The FPC board structure 100a is folded along the folding line L1, so the key portions 112 are located between two adjacent bonding portions 122. Namely, in the present embodiment, the bonding portions 122 and the key portions 112 are respectively located at two opposite sides of the FPC board structure 100a, and then the FPC board structure 100a is folded along the folding line L1, such that the key portions 112 are stacked between two adjacent bonding portions 122. Moreover, the FPC board structure 100a further includes a shielding metal layer, which at least is disposed at an overlapping portion of the folded FPC board structure 100a, so as to reduce electromagnetic coupling effect on the overlapping portion of the FPC board structure 100a.
In addition, the FPC board structure 100a may further include a circuit clearance region A1, and the antenna module is disposed in the circuit clearance region A1, so that circuit layout must avoid this region. In the present embodiment, the FPC board structure 100a may be partially overlapped with the FPC board structure 100a. Under such circumstances, the circuit on the FPC board structure 100a must bypass this region. Namely, that circuit layout must avoid an overlapping region A2 where the FPC board structure 100a and the circuit clearance region A1 are overlapped, and must keep a certain distance from the antenna module, so as to reduce the impact of electromagnetic coupling on the antenna module.
In the present embodiment, the FPC board structure 100b may be a multi-layer circuit board structure, which may include a first dielectric layer 122b, a bonding circuit layer 122a, a second dielectric layer 112c, a key circuit layer 112a/112b and a third dielectric layer 140. In addition, the FPC board structure 100b may further include a shielding laminating layer 130 which includes a shielding metal layer 132 and a fourth dielectric layer 134, and is laminated between the key circuit layer 112a/112b and the bonding circuit layer 122a. In detail, the bonding circuit layer 122a is disposed on the first dielectric layer 112b; the fourth dielectric layer 134 is disposed on the bonding circuit layer 122a; the shielding metal layer 132 is disposed on the fourth dielectric layer 134, so as to be located between the key circuit layer 112a/112b and the bonding circuit layer 122a. The second dielectric layer 112c is disposed on the shielding metal layer 132, the key circuit layer 112a/112b is disposed on the second dielectric layer 112c, and the third dielectric layer 140 is disposed on the key circuit layer 112a/112b. Moreover, the FPC board structure 100b may further include at least one first opening 160 and a plurality of second openings 150. The first opening 160 partially exposes the key circuit layer 112a/112b to form the key portions 112, and the second openings 150 partially expose the bonding circuit layer 122a to form the bonding portions 122.
To put it simply, the FPC board structure 100b of the present embodiment is a multi-layer circuit board structure including the key circuit layer 112a/112b and the bonding circuit layer 122a, and the key circuit layer 112a/112b and the bonding circuit layer 122a are partially exposed by the first openings 160 and the second openings 150 to form the exposed key portions 112 and the exposed bonding portions 122. In addition, the first openings 160 are located between the corresponding two adjacent second openings 150, such that the key portions 112 are located between the corresponding two adjacent bonding portions 122, and the key portions 112 and the bonding portions 122 are arranged along the direction parallel to the side S1 of the touch panel 200 to form the FPC board structure 100b as shown in
In addition, below the FPC board structure 100b, there may also be a circuit clearance region A1 as shown in
In sum, in the present application, the key portion of the portable electronic device is disposed on the FPC board structure of the touch panel assembly. The key portion and the bonding portions of the FPC board structure are arranged along the direction parallel to the side of the sensing array and connected to the bonding region of the touch panel, and the key portion is disposed between any two adjacent bonding portions. Accordingly, the key portion of the portable electronic device can be disposed at the bonding region of the touch panel along with the bonding portions, so as to save layout space of the touch panel. Thereby, the layout space at a periphery of the touch panel can be efficiently utilized, such that the layout of the touch panel can be more compact. In addition, the application improves the space utilization of the portable electronic device using the touch panel assembly, facilitates in reducing the overall size of the portable electronic device, and provides a physical key formed by the key portion.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present application without departing from the scope or spirit of the application. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present application cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
