Patent Application
20140166991
The present description is related to display technology and, in particular, to a display that appears to be transparent.
Graphics displays are traditionally viewable only on one side and are opaque. A liquid crystal display includes substantial circuitry on a glass substrate and is backed by a backlight to project light through the liquid crystal structure. The backlight structure sends light in one direction through the liquid crystal structure and the liquid crystal structure only allows light to pass through the crystal structures and not the electronic and electrical components that are connected to the crystal structures. Similarly a plasma display is one sided. One side presents the glowing phosphors while the other side contains the electronic and electrical components used to drive the phosphors.
In order to provide a more transparent display, projectors have been used to project light from a distance onto a semi-transparent display screen. This approach is limited in that the projection screen must capture the projected light but pass all other light. Since both functions are performed imperfectly, the display is typically dim and the screen is only partially transparent.
Embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals refer to similar elements.
A transparent display screen may be used to allow a display to be viewed from either side of the display panel. This allows the display to be more easily shared. It may also be used to allow a viewer of the display to see through the display to what is on the other side. This allows for greater situational awareness for the user. Greater situational awareness may be useful if the user is moving or if the user is interacting with objects or persons on the other side of the display.
With the advent of very bright and small light emitters, such as light emitting diodes (LED), including organic LEDs (OLED), a display can be constructed that has a distance between each light emitter. If the light emitters are mounted to a transparent substrate, such as a plastic screen, then a viewer may be able to see between the light emitters to see what is on the other side of the display. The plastic and connecting wires may also be made of a flexible material so that the display is flexible.
In the described examples, electrodes are attached to every pixel. Peripheral circuits, including drivers for the columns and rows of pixels are positioned on the sides of the display. The electrodes are made of transparent materials, such as indium tin oxide (ITO) or graphene The electrodes, in the case of an OLED serve as the anode and cathode of each OLED. The conductive layer of the OLED can be made, for example, of e.g. PEDOT:PSS aka Poly(3,4-thylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate), while the light emitting layer can be made, for example, of e.g. of poly(p-phenylene vinylene) or polyfluorene.
Electrodes are attached at each pixel 26 and the peripheral circuits such as drivers 28 and 30 are positioned on the edge of the substrate 10. In the example of
In the example of
In the example of
In order in ensure greater transparency, the wires connecting the row and column drivers 28, 32 to each light emitter 26 may also be made transparent. While a typical wire is very thin and will not be easily seen from a distance, there are many wires in the display. As a result, the display will appear to be more transparent if the wires are made from a conductive transparent material. A conventional computer monitor has a distance of about 300 microns between pixels so a 100 micron spacing will provide a very pixel dense display. The distance between the pixels may be made greater or smaller depending on the intended use and performance of the display. The display 10 of
The transparent display may be formed in any of a variety of different ways. The substrate may be plastic, glass, various crystal structures or another transparent material. The light emitters, such as OLEDs are then formed on the substrate and the wires are formed on the substrate to connect with the OLEDs. OLEDs may be formed in a manner similar to liquid crystals or by printing. The wires may be formed by first depositing a layer of material, such as indium tin oxide or graphene, by chemical vapor deposition, and then etching away, such as by plasma etching, all but the lines that will be used for wires. Wires may also be formed by printing and heating, among other ways. Connectors are formed on the edges of the substrate to connect the wires to other devices. If drivers or other circuitry are also formed on the edges of the display as shown for example in
The display is driven by a central processing unit 52 that has access to a memory 54 for storing instructions and data. The CPU may contain or be coupled to central processing, graphics processing, and communications elements and is coupled also to a user input system 56. The CPU and memory may be part of an integrated system on a chip SOC or provided as separate dies, modules, or packages. The user input system may include buttons, keys, direction controllers, alpha numeric keys, touch surfaces or any of a number of other input systems. If the device 40 is portable it may also be powered by a battery 58. If the device is hand held, a user may be able to hold the device in his hand while looking at the display and still be able to see what is in front of him or below him on the ground. The transparent display in a portable device provides a wide range of different uses. As an example the user may be able to view the display while also viewing distant or nearby objects. This is shown, for example in
In
The scene is viewed by a camera 53 mounted to the display housing or located nearby with a similar view. The processor 52 can receive the camera view and apply image recognition software to recognize the scene and to find landmarks or other information to mark. The camera view may also be sent to external processing or data resources to obtain information. The identified objects may be cross-referenced with any one or more of a variety of internet databases, such as online encyclopedias, locality info, and even personal records of the device user.
The processor generates the outlines 45 and provides the context information 47. The information may include what or who it is and its salient characteristics The resulting data may be identifications 47, as shown, or any other type of information, including travel routes, time tables, bus routes, connecting points, or known locations of individuals or movable items. Warehouse inventory and location as well as machinery repair information can also be provided. The display may be used for example to identify the location of nuts in a remove and replace operation. As shown in
Any of a variety of different augmented reality techniques may be applied to further enhance the image. The camera view may also be used to align the outlines and text generated by the CPU with the corresponding items in view through the transparent display. As the user moves the display, the view through the display will change and the displayed identifications may be moved to follow the view. In addition, identifications can be added and deleted as different items come into and out of view.
Depending on its applications, computing device 900 may include other components that may or may not be physically and electrically coupled to the board 902. These other components include, but are not limited to, volatile memory (e.g., DRAM) 908, non-volatile memory (e.g., ROM) 909, flash memory (not shown), a graphics processor 912, a digital signal processor (not shown), a crypto processor (not shown), a chipset 914, an antenna 916, a display 918 such as a touchscreen display, a touchscreen controller 920, a battery 922, an audio codec (not shown), a video codec (not shown), a power amplifier 924, a global positioning system (GPS) device 926, a compass 928, an accelerometer (not shown), a gyroscope (not shown), a speaker 930, a camera 932, and a mass storage device (such as hard disk drive) 910, compact disk (CD) (not shown), digital versatile disk (DVD) (not shown), and so forth). These components may be connected to the system board 902, mounted to the system board, or combined with any of the other components.
The communication chip 906 enables wireless and/or wired communications for the transfer of data to and from the computing device 900. The term “wireless” and its derivatives may be used to describe circuits, devices, systems, methods, techniques, communications channels, etc., that may communicate data through the use of modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. The term does not imply that the associated devices do not contain any wires, although in some embodiments they might not. The communication chip 906 may implement any of a number of wireless or wired standards or protocols, including but not limited to Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 family), WiMAX (IEEE 802.16 family), IEEE 802.20, long term evolution (LTE), Ev-DO, HSPA+, HSDPA+, HSUPA+, EDGE, GSM, GPRS, CDMA, TDMA, DECT, Bluetooth, Ethernet derivatives thereof, as well as any other wireless and wired protocols that are designated as 3G, 4G, 5G, and beyond. The computing device 900 may include a plurality of communication chips 906. For instance, a first communication chip 906 may be dedicated to shorter range wireless communications such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and a second communication chip 906 may be dedicated to longer range wireless communications such as GPS, EDGE, GPRS, CDMA, WiMAX, LTE, Ev-DO, and others.
The processor 904 of the computing device 900 includes an integrated circuit die packaged within the processor 904. In some implementations of the invention, the integrated circuit die of the processor, memory devices, communication devices, or other components include one or more dies that are formed with off-plane conductive line interconnects in accordance with implementations of the invention. The term “processor” may refer to any device or portion of a device that processes electronic data from registers and/or memory to transform that electronic data into other electronic data that may be stored in registers and/or memory.
In various implementations, the computing device 900 may be a laptop, a netbook, a notebook, an ultrabook, a smartphone, a tablet, a personal digital assistant (PDA), an ultra mobile PC, a mobile phone, a desktop computer, a server, a printer, a scanner, a monitor, a set-top box, an entertainment control unit, a digital camera, a portable music player, or a digital video recorder. In further implementations, the computing device 900 may be any other electronic device that processes data.
Embodiments may be implemented as a part of one or more memory chips, controllers, CPUs (Central Processing Unit), microchips or integrated circuits interconnected using a motherboard, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and/or a field programmable gate array (FPGA).
References to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”, “example embodiment”, “various embodiments”, etc., indicate that the embodiment(s) of the invention so described may include particular features, structures, or characteristics, but not every embodiment necessarily includes the particular features, structures, or characteristics. Further, some embodiments may have some, all, or none of the features described for other embodiments.
In the following description and claims, the term “coupled” along with its derivatives, may be used. “Coupled” is used to indicate that two or more elements co-operate or interact with each other, but they may or may not have intervening physical or electrical components between them.
As used in the claims, unless otherwise specified, the use of the ordinal adjectives “first”, “second”, “third”, etc., to describe a common element, merely indicate that different instances of like elements are being referred to, and are not intended to imply that the elements so described must be in a given sequence, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any other manner.
The following examples pertain to further embodiments. Specifics in the examples may be used anywhere in one or more embodiments. In one embodiment, an apparatus comprises a display having a transparent substrate, a plurality of light emitting elements on the substrate, and transparent wires on the substrate to provide an electrical connection to each light emitting element.
Further embodiments include the above apparatus wherein the transparent substrate has an edge, the display further comprising a connection array on the edge of the substrate, and wherein the transparent wires on the substrate connect each light emitting element to the connection array.
Further embodiments include the above apparatus further comprising driver circuits on the edge of the substrate for each light emitting element wherein the connection array is coupled to driver circuits. Further embodiments include the above apparatus wherein the transparent substrate is formed of flexible plastic, wherein the light emitting elements are formed of organic light emitting diodes, and, wherein each light emitting element is spaced apart from each other light emitting element by a distance greater than its width, such as ten times greater than its width.
Further embodiments include the above apparatus wherein the transparent wires are formed of indium tin oxide, and wherein the transparent wires are formed of graphene and wherein the substrate is rectangular having four sides and wherein the connection array is on two adjacent sides of the four sides, the connection array on the first side addressing rows of the light emitting elements and the connection array on the second side addressing columns of the light emitting elements. Further embodiments have a transparent protective layer on the substrate and covering the transparent wires.
In one embodiment, a computer comprises a transparent display on a transparent substrate, a plurality of light emitting elements on the substrate, transparent wires on the substrate to provide electrical connections to each light emitting element, a central processing unit coupled to the display, and memory coupled to the central processing unit to store instructions and data.
Further embodiments include the above apparatus including a user input connector coupled to the central processing unit to receive an input from an external user input device. In further embodiments the transparent substrate has an edge, the display further comprising a connection array on the edge of the substrate coupled to the central processing unit, and transparent wires on the substrate to connect each light emitting element to the connection array.
In another embodiment, a method comprises forming a plurality of light emitting elements on a transparent substrate, and forming transparent wires on the substrate to provide an electrical connection to each light emitting element. In further embodiments, the transparent substrate has an edge, the method further comprising forming a connection array on the edge of the substrate coupled to the transparent wires on the substrate, and the transparent substrate is formed of flexible plastic. Further embodiments include forming a transparent protective layer on the substrate and covering the transparent wires. In further embodiments forming the transparent wires comprises forming wires by chemical vapor deposition. Further embodiments include forming driver circuits on edges of the transparent substrate using silicon semiconductor photolithography.
