This application claims the benefit of Taiwan application Serial No. 102105317, filed Feb. 8, 2013, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a touch panel, and more particularly to a touch panel having electrostatic protection.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since the development of the touch technology, touch panels have occupied a significant market share in the market of electronic products. The touch display panels integrating touch and display functions are now available in the market. The touch display panels can be used in portable consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, notebook computers, Tablet PCs and digital cameras.
Most of the electronic products integrating touch function that are available in the market are realized by assembling a touch panel and a display panel together and the touch signal and the display signal are transmitted via the signal lines of the touch panel and the display panel respectively. Besides, the touch panel further integrating with the touch circuit on a substrate accordingly has the advantages of lower cost, higher transmittance and thinner thickness. Conversely, it has deteriorated structural protection and cannot provide sufficient electrostatic protection. According to the popular electrostatic protection mechanism, instantaneous large current is vented via the conductive wires that need to be additionally provided. Since the electrostatic protection mechanism cannot cover the entire touch panel, such that the effect of electrostatic protection will be decreased. To improve the mentioned drawback, an electrostatic shielding film will be provided. However, it will decrease the transmittance of the light of the touch panel.
The invention is directed to a touch panel having electrostatic protection for enhancing the effect of electrostatic protection without affecting the layout area of the touch panel.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a touch panel having electrostatic protection is provided. The touch panel includes a substrate, a plurality of sensing electrodes, a plurality of conductive wires and an electrostatic protection line. The substrate has a touch sensitive area and a periphery area surrounding the touch sensitive area. The inner part of the periphery area is a first layout area, and the outer part of the periphery area is a second layout area. The sensing electrodes are formed in the touch sensitive area. The conductive wires are disposed in the first layout area, and the electrostatic protection line is disposed in the second layout area and adjacent to the conductive wires. The width of the electrostatic protection line is greater than the width of each of the conductive wires, and a distance separating an outside of the electrostatic protection line from at least one border of the substrate is smaller than 48.12 mm and greater than or equal to 0.3 mm.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a touch panel having electrostatic protection is provided. The touch panel includes a substrate, a plurality of sensing electrodes, a plurality of conductive wires and an electrostatic protection line. The substrate has a touch sensitive area and a periphery area surrounding the touch sensitive area. The inner part of the periphery area is a first layout area, and the outer part of the periphery area is a second layout area. The sensing electrodes are formed in the touch sensitive area. The conductive wires are disposed in the first layout area, and the electrostatic protection line is disposed in the second layout area and adjacent to the conductive wires. The width of the electrostatic protection line is greater than the width of each of the conductive wires. The electrostatic protection line is separated from an edge of the touch sensitive area by a distance expressed as: d=GR+nV+(n−1)S+GL. Wherein, GR represents the distance between the electrostatic protection line and the conductive wire closest to the electrostatic protection line; n represents the quantity of conductive wires; V represents the equal line width of each conductive wire; S represents the equal pitch between two adjacent conductive wires; GL represents the distance between the edge of the touch sensitive area and the conductive wire closest to the edge of the touch sensitive area, and the distance d is between 0.06˜11.52 mm.
According to an alternate embodiment of the present invention, a touch panel having electrostatic protection is provided. The touch panel includes a substrate, a plurality of sensing electrodes, a plurality of conductive wires, a first electrostatic protection line and a second electrostatic protection line. The substrate has a touch sensitive area and a periphery area surrounding the touch sensitive area. The inner part of the periphery area is a first layout area, and the outer part of the periphery area is a second layout area. The sensing electrodes are formed in the touch sensitive area. The conductive wires and the first electrostatic protection line are disposed in the first layout area, and the first electrostatic protection line is disposed between the conductive wires and the touch sensitive area. The second electrostatic protection line is disposed in the second layout area and adjacent to the conductive wires, and the second width of the electrostatic protection line is greater than the width of the conductive wires. A distance separating an outside of the second electrostatic protection line from at least one border of the substrate is smaller than 48.12 mm and greater than or equal to 0.3 mm.
According to another alternate embodiment of the present invention, a touch panel having electrostatic protection is provided. The touch panel includes a substrate, a plurality of sensing electrodes, a plurality of conductive wires and an electrostatic protection line. The substrate has a touch sensitive area and a periphery area surrounding the touch sensitive area, the periphery area has at least one layout area. The sensing electrodes are formed in the touch sensitive area. The conductive wires and the electrostatic protection line are disposed on the layout area, and the electrostatic protection line is disposed between the touch sensitive area and the conductive wires.
The above and other aspects of the invention will become better understood with regard to the following detailed description of the preferred but non-limiting embodiment(s). The following description is made with reference to the accompanying drawings.
According to the touch panel having electrostatic protection of the embodiment, a conductive ring with equal or unequal line width is used as an electrostatic protection line surrounding a periphery area of the touch sensitive area. The periphery area further has a first layout area and a second layout area. The electrostatic protection line is disposed in the second layout area and adjacent to a plurality of conductive wires disposed in the first layout area. In an embodiment, the line width of the electrostatic protection line is greater than the line width of each conductive wire to enhance the effect of electrostatic protection. For example, the width of the electrostatic protection line is greater than 20 μm (0.02 mm), and the width of the electrostatic protection line can be adjusted according to the area of the first layout area. The larger the width, the larger the coverage of electrostatic protection, such that the electrostatic protection line can cover the entire touch panel and provide better effect of electrostatic protection.
A number of embodiments are disclosed below for elaborating the invention. However, the embodiments of the invention are for detailed descriptions only, not for limiting the scope of protection of the invention.
Referring to
As indicated in
Besides, another electrostatic protection line (not illustrated) can be used and selectively disposed between the touch sensitive area 112 and the conductive wires 130 to avoid signal interference occurring between the touch sensitive area 112 and the conductive wires 130.
The electrostatic protection line 140 can be a conductive ring with equal line width extended along and parallel to the border 111 of the substrate 110 and separated from the conductive wires 130 by a predetermined distance. The predetermined distance can be greater than 20 μm and preferably is greater than 0.2 mm to avoid the electrostatic protection line 140 being too close to the conductive wires 130 and causing electrostatic jumping towards the conductive wires 130 in the first layout area B1.
As indicated in the partial areas A1 and A2, the width L1 of the electrostatic protection line 140 remains unchanged, but the distance between the electrostatic protection line 140 and the conductive wires 130 can be adjusted according to the area of the first layout area B1. The quantity of the conductive wires 130 in the partial area A1 is smaller than that in the partial area A2. In the partial area A1, the electrostatic protection line 140 is separated from the outer conductive wire 130 by a distance such as G1 preferably between 20˜250 μm. In the partial area A2, the width L1 of the electrostatic protection line 140 remains unchanged, but the distance between the electrostatic protection line 140 and the outer conductive wire 130 is relatively reduced to be G2 and preferably between 20˜200 μm as the first layout area B1 is expanded outwardly along with the increase in the quantity of conductive wires 130. To summarize, the distance separating the electrostatic protection line 140 from the touch sensitive area 112 can be expressed as: d=GR+nV+(n−1)S+GL. Wherein, GR represents the distance between the electrostatic protection line 140 and the conductive wire 130 closest to the electrostatic protection line 140; n represents the quantity of conductive wires 130; V represents the equal line width of each conductive wire 130; S represents the equal pitch between two adjacent conductive wires 130; GL represents the distance between the edge of the touch sensitive area 112 and the conductive wire 130 closest to the edge of the touch sensitive area 112, and the distance d is between 0.06˜11.52 mm.
As indicated in the partial enlargement of
In another embodiment, an electrostatic protection line (not illustrated) can be used and selectively disposed between the touch sensitive area 112 and the conductive wires 130 to avoid signal interference occurring between the touch sensitive area 112 and the conductive wires 130.
The width of the electrostatic protection line 142 is smaller than the width of the electrostatic protection line 140. The electrostatic protection line 140 is adjacent to the conductive wires 130, and the width of the electrostatic protection line 140 is greater than the width V of any conductive wires 130.
As indicated in the partial areas C1 and C2 of
As disclosed in the above two embodiments of the invention, the electrostatic protection line is realized by a conductive ring with equal or unequal line width and the ratio of the area of the electrostatic protection line 140 to the second layout area B2 is adjusted to be between 2%˜95% for adjusting the effect of electrostatic protection. In
The electrostatic protection line 140 of the embodiments is a ground line, for example. Based on the electrostatic discharge path, the electrostatic energy accumulated on the substrate 110 will be discharged and grounded via a shortest path. Since the electrostatic protection line 140 is relatively closer to the border 111 of the substrate 110 than the conductive wires 130, the electrostatic energy will be discharged via the nearest electrostatic protection line 140 instead of the conductive wires 130 farther away from the border 111 to avoid the touch panel 100 being damaged by electrostatic energy.
The electrostatic protection line 140 and the conductive wires 130 can be formed by the same or different materials such as copper, silver, nickel, gold or an alloy thereof. As well as metals, the electrostatic protection line 140 can be formed by a transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide (ITO), aluminum zinc oxide (AZO), indium zinc oxide (IZO), gallium zinc oxide (GZO) or fluorine tin oxide (FTO).
The ratio of the electrostatic protection line 140 to the area of the second layout area B2 can be obtained according to the distance separating the outside of the electrostatic protection line 140 from the border 111 of the substrate 110. Referring to
Suppose the width of the second layout area B2 is 2 millimeters (mm), and the width L4 of the electrostatic protection line 140 is greater than the width V of any adjacent conductive wires 130. As indicated in
An experimental result of electrostatic discharge shows that when the distance L5 separating the outside 141 of the electrostatic protection line 140 from at least one border 111 of the substrate 110 is greater than 0.3 mm, the electrostatic energy will decay as the distance L5 increases. That is, the larger the distance L5, the severer the decay of the electrostatic energy.
The above numeric values are for exemplification purpose only, not for limiting the scope of protection of the invention. For example, when the width of the second layout area B2 is between 6˜6.4 mm and the outside of the electrostatic protection line 140 is separated from the border 111 of the substrate 110 by a distance between 0.32˜0.3 mm, the electrostatic protection line occupies around 95% of the total area of the second layout area B2. When the width of the second layout area B2 is between 49˜50.6 mm and the outside of the electrostatic protection line 140 is separated from the border 111 of the substrate 110 by a distance around 48.12 mm, the electrostatic protection line occupies 2˜5% of the total area of the second layout area B2.
In the present embodiment of the invention, the distance L5 separating the outside 141 of the electrostatic protection line 140 from at least one border 111 of the substrate 110 can be adjusted to be smaller than 48.12 mm and greater than or equal to 0.3 mm by adjusting the width of the electrostatic protection line 140 and the ratio of the electrostatic protection line 140 to the total area of the second layout area B2.
In an application of different touch-sensitive products, the distance L5 separating the outside 141 of the electrostatic protection line 140 from at least one border 111 of the substrate 110 is smaller than 14.2 mm and greater than or equal to 0.3 mm, for first example. The distance L5 separating the outside 141 of the electrostatic protection line 140 from at least one border 111 of the substrate 110 is smaller than 23 mm and greater than or equal to 4 mm, for second example. Or, the distance L5 separating the outside 141 of the electrostatic protection line 140 from at least one border 111 of the substrate 110 is smaller than 48.2 mm and greater than or equal to 6 mm, for third example.
Referring to
According to the touch panel having electrostatic protection disclosed in above embodiments of the invention, the electrostatic protection line is realized by a conductive ring with equal or unequal line width for enhancing the effect of electrostatic protection. Furthermore, the electrostatic protection line being located in the second layout area does not affect the layout area of the touch panel.
While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiment(s), it is to be understood that the invention is not limited thereto. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements and procedures, and the scope of the appended claims therefore should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements and procedures.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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102105317 | Feb 2013 | TW | national |