TOUCH SENSING SYSTEM AND DISPLAY APPARATUS

• US 20150123939A1
• Filed: 08/15/2014
• Published: 05/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Display Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: LG Display Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: KWON, Sujin, KIM, YoungGyu, LEE, ByoungGwan, JANG, Yoonnara, KIM, Kyounghwan
• Granted Patent: US 9,678,611 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04166 Details of scanning methods, e.g. sampling time, grouping of sub areas or time sharing with display driving Synchronisation with the driving of the display or the backlighting unit to avoid interferences generated internally G06F3/04184
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0446 using a grid-like structure of electrodes in at least two directions, e.g. using row and column electrodes

Abstract

The present disclosure is related to a touch sensing system and a display apparatus decreasing a sensing time and enabling an effective touch sensing, although a number of sensing electrodes increases according to an increase of an area of a touch panel.

Claims

1. A touch sensing system comprising:

a touch panel including driving electrodes and sensing electrodes defining sensor nodes;

two or more touch integrated circuits that sense sensing information of each of the corresponding sensor nodes from connected sensing electrodes among the sensing electrodes by sequentially driving the driving electrodes, and transmit sensing data including the sensed sensing information of each of the corresponding sensor nodes;

a bridge that aligns the sensing data transmitted from each of the two or more touch integrated circuits based on a sensor node position, and transmits the sensing data; and

a controller that detects a touch coordinate based on a whole or a portion of the sensing data transmitted from the bridge.

2. The touch sensing system of claim 1, wherein the bridge simultaneously receives, the sensing data transmitted from each of the two or more touch integrated circuits, in parallel.

3. The touch sensing system of claim 1, wherein each of the two or more touch integrated circuits performs a sensing operation for an (N+1)^th touch sensing process unrelated to a data transmission for an N^th touch sensing process.

4. The touch sensing system of claim 1, further comprising:

a shared memory that stores the sensing data transmitted from the bridge and read by the controller.

5. The touch sensing system of claim 4, wherein the bridge and the controller exchange a possessory right signal for controlling a possessory right with respect to the shared memory.

6. The touch sensing system of claim 5, wherein one of the bridge and the controller accesses to the shared memory after one of the bridge and the controller transmits the possessory right signal to another of the bridge and the controller.

7. The touch sensing system of claim 5, wherein the bridge accesses to the shared memory after the bridge transmits the possessory right signal to the controller, and the controller accesses to the shared memory when the bridge does not transmit the possessory right signal.

8. The touch sensing system of claim 5, further comprising:

a switching element switching a connection to the shared memory from the bridge and the controller so that only one of the bridge and the controller accesses to the shared memory at one time point according to the possessory right signal,

wherein the switching element is included in each of the bridge and the controller, or the switching element is disposed outside the bridge and the controller.

9. The touch sensing system of claim 4, wherein a priority of the possessory right signal, of the bridge, for the shared memory is higher than a priority of the possessory right signal, of the controller, for the shared memory.

10. The touch sensing system of claim 4, wherein the controller reads the whole or the portion of the sensing data transmitted from the bridge and stored in the shared memory, and detects the touch coordinate based on the read sensing data, and

when the controller reads only the portion of the whole of the sensing data transmitted from the bridge and stored in the shared memory, the controller reads only the portion of the sensing data transmitted from the touch integrated circuit to the bridge and stored in the shared memory among the whole of the sensing data stored in the shared memory, based on a touch integrated circuit tag stored in the shared memory in correspondence to the two or more touch integrated circuits, respectively, and

the touch integrated circuit is connected to the sensing electrodes in a partial area corresponding to a point where the a touch is generated among a whole area of the touch panel.

11. The touch sensing system of claim 10, wherein the controller, when the point where the touch is generated among the whole area of the touch panel is on a boundary between two areas or is near to an adjacent area in a distance equal to or shorter than a certain distance, reads the portion of the sensing data transmitted from the two touch integrated circuits to the bridge and stored in the shared memory among the whole of the sensing data stored in the shared memory, based on the touch integrated circuit tag stored in the shared memory in correspondence to the two or more touch integrated circuits, respectively, and

the two touch integrated circuits are connected to the sensing electrodes in each of two areas of both sides of the point where the touch is generated among the whole area of the touch panel or the adjacent area adjacent to the point where the touch is generated among the whole area of the touch panel.

12. The touch sensing system of claim 10, wherein each of the two or more touch integrated circuits determines a touch generation or non-generation based on a charge amount change or a voltage change in each of the sensor nodes defined by the connected sensing electrodes among the sensing electrodes formed in the touch panel, and transmits touch generation or non-generation information corresponding to the determination result along with sensing data including sensing information of each of the corresponding sensor nodes,

the bridge collects the touch generation or non-generation information transmitted from each of the two or more touch integrated circuits, and provides a touch integrated circuit tag instructing a touch generation or instructing a touch non-generation to each of the two or more touch integrated circuits, and

when the sensing data transmitted from the two or more touch integrated circuits and aligned is stored in the shared memory, the touch integrated circuit tags respectively provided to the two or more touch integrated circuits are stored in the shared memory along with the sensing data.

13. A display apparatus comprising:

a touch panel including driving electrodes and sensing electrodes defining sensor nodes; and

a printed circuit board attached to one side of the touch panel, and including

two or more touch integrated circuits sensing the sensor nodes and transmitting sensing data,

a bridge aligning the sensing data transmitted from each of the two or more touch integrated circuits and transmitting the sensing data, and

a controller detecting a touch coordinate based on a whole or a portion of the sensing data transmitted from the bridge.

14. A touch sensing system comprising:

a touch panel including driving electrodes and sensing electrodes defining sensor nodes;

two or more touch integrated circuits that sense sensing information of each of the corresponding sensor nodes from connected sensing electrodes among the sensing electrodes by sequentially driving the driving electrodes, transmit sensing data including the sensed sensing information of each of the corresponding sensor nodes, and transmit touch generation or non-generation information determined in each of the sensor nodes defined by the connected sensing electrodes or a touch integrated circuit tag corresponding to the touch generation or non-generation information; and

a controller that detects a touch coordinate based on only a portion of the sensing data among a whole of the sensing data transmitted from each of the two or more touch integrated circuits and based on the touch generation or non-generation information or the touch integrated circuit tags respectively corresponding to the two or more touch integrated circuits.