Electrophoretic indication display

• US 20070171512A1
• Filed: 10/06/2006
• Published: 07/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Display Company Limited (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Lee, Yong-Uk
• Granted Patent: US 7,477,445 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 359/296
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/13338 Input devices, e.g. touch panels
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/167 by electrophoresis
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/16757 Microcapsules

Abstract

An electrophoretic display having a pair of substrates separated by a microcapsule layer, a plurality of pixels formed at the intersections of rows of gate lines and columns of data lines on at least one of the substrates, wherein at least one of said substrates is sufficiently flexible when touched to change the separation between said substrates at any of said pixels, a plurality of sense signal lines formed parallel to the data lines, and a sense signal processing unit connected with the sense signal lines for sensing a change in capacitance between said substrates at any of said pixels.

Claims

1. An electrophoretic display having a pair of substrates separated by a microcapsule layer, a plurality of pixels formed at the intersections of rows of gate lines and columns of data lines on at least one of the substrates, comprising:

at least one of said substrates being sufficiently flexible when touched to change the separation between said substrates at any of said pixels;

a plurality of sense signal lines formed parallel to the data lines; and

a sense signal processing unit connected with the sense signal lines for sensing a change in capacitance between said substrates at any of said pixels.

2. An electrophoretic display according to claim 1 wherein the microcapsule layer comprises a plurality of microcapsules formed as positively and negatively charged pigment particles.

3. The electrophoretic display of claim 2 having a plurality of switching elements connected to said pixels at the intersections of said data lines and gate lines.

4. The electrophoretic display of claim 3 wherein respective ones of said switching elements are connected to a gate line, a data line and a sensing line.

5. The electrophoretic display of claim 4 wherein the gate lines are sequentially scanned and wherein said switching elements are TFTs.

6. The electrophoretic display of claim 5 wherein:

a first TFT connected to a current pixel charges the pixel capacitance from the data signal present when the gate line for the row two before the current pixel'"'"'s row is scanned;

a second TFT connected to the current pixel for reading the charge on the current pixel when the gate line for the row before the current pixel is scanned; and

a third TFT connected to the current pixel for charging the current pixel from the data signal present when the gate line for the current pixel'"'"'s row is scanned to display the current image.

7. A method for manufacturing an electrophoretic display comprising:

forming a plurality of gate lines on a substrate;

forming a gate insulating layer that covers the gate lines;

forming a semiconductor layer on the gate insulating layer;

forming a plurality of data lines orthogonal to said gate lines on the gate insulating layer;

forming a plurality of sense signal lines parallel to the data lines;

forming a passivation layer for covering the data lines and the sense signal lines having contact holes that expose portions of said semiconductor layer; and

forming a pixel electrode connected with said exposed portions of said semiconductor layer to form first, second and third thin film transistors connected to respective ones of said gate lines.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the gate lines comprise:

a present gate line for transferring a gate signal to a present pixel;

a previous gate line for transferring a gate signal to a previous pixel; and

a gate line before the previous gate line for transferring a gate signal to a pixel before the previous pixel.

9. The EPD of claim 8, wherein

a first of the thin film transistors at said present pixel has an electrode connected to a present gate line;

a second of said thin film transistor at said present pixel has an electrode connected to said previous gate line; and

a third of said thin film transistors at said present pixel has an electrode connected to a gate line before the previous gate line.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein:

said first of said thin film transistors has an electrode connected to a data line.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein said second of said thin film transistors has an electrode connected to a sense signal line.

The method of claim 11 wherein the third of said thin film transistors has an electrode also connected to said data line.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein a thin film transistor formed at a previous pixel has an electrode elongated up to the present pixel.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein:

forming a counter display panel with a common electrode formed thereon;

forming a microcapsule layer on the common electrode; and

attaching the counter display panel with microcapsule layer formed thereon to the TFT array panel, wherein microcapsule layer comprises a plurality of microcapsules formed as positively and negatively charged pigment particles.