High dynamic range liquid crystal display

• US 9,541,794 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2014
• Issued: 01/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/10/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Wu, Jiaying, Chen, Wei, Chen, Cheng, Riedel, William Mathews, Qi, Jun, Zhong, John Z., Marcu, Gabriel
• Primary Examiner(s): CROCKETT, RYAN M
• Application Number:
  US14/502,199
• Publication Number:
  US 20150198834A1
• Time in Patent Office: 833 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/133514 Colour filters
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/133528 Polarisers
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/1336 Illuminating devices
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/133614 using photoluminescence, e.g. phosphors illuminated by UV or blue light
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/13363 Birefringent elements, e.g. for optical compensation
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/13471 in which all the liquid crystal cells or layers remain transparent, e.g. FLC, ECB, DAP, HAN, TN, STN, SBE-LC cells G02F1/13475 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/1368 in which the switching element is a three-electrode device G02F1/136277 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 2413/13 Positive birefingence
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 2413/14 Negative birefingence

Abstract

A display may have a first stage such as a color liquid crystal display stage and a second stage such as a monochromatic liquid crystal display stage that are coupled in tandem so that light from a backlight passes through both stages. The dynamic range of the display may be enhanced by using the second stage to perform local dimming operations. The pixel pitch of the second stage may be greater than the pixel pitch of the first stage to ease alignment tolerances and reduce image processing complexity. The color stage and monochromatic stages may share a polarizer. A color filter in the color stage may have an array of red, green, and blue elements or an array of white, red, green, and blue elements. The color stage may be a fringe field display and the monochrome stage may be an in-plane switching display or a twisted nematic stage.

Claims

1. A display, comprising:

a color stage having pixels with a first pitch;

a monochromatic stage having pixels with a second pitch that is greater than the first pitch;

backlight structures that include a light source, that include a quantum dot structure that receives light from the light source, and that include a light guide plate that receives light from the quantum dot structure and provides backlight, wherein the color stage and monochromatic stage are coupled in tandem so that the backlight passes through both the color stage and the monochromatic stage; and

display circuitry that receives red-green-blue image data, converts the red-green-blue image data into white-red-green-blue image data, computes a brightness setting to be supplied to a backlight controller based on the red-green-blue image data, and splits the white-red-green-blue image data into a first channel supplied to the color stage and a second channel supplied to the monochromatic stage.

2. The display defined in claim 1 wherein the color stage comprises:

a thin-film transistor layer;

a color filter layer that includes white, red, green, and blue color filter elements; and

a liquid crystal layer interposed between the thin-film transistor layer and the color filter layer.

3. The display defined in claim 1 further comprising a common polarizer that is shared between the color stage and the monochromatic stage.

4. The display defined in claim 3 wherein:

the color stage comprises;

a first thin-film transistor layer;

a color filter layer; and

a first liquid crystal layer between the first thin-film transistor layer and the color filter layer; and

the monochromatic lower stage comprises;

a second thin-film transistor layer;

a transparent substrate; and

a second liquid crystal layer between the second thin-film transistor layer and the transparent substrate.

5. The display defined in claim 4 wherein the common polarizer is interposed between the first thin-film transistor layer and the transparent substrate.

6. A display, comprising:

a color stage having a first layer of liquid crystal material and having pixels with a first pixel pitch;

a monochromatic stage having a second layer of liquid crystal material and having pixels with a second pixel pitch that is greater than the first pixel pitch;

a backlight that produces light using a light source, wherein the color stage and monochromatic stage are coupled in tandem so that the light from the backlight passes through both the color stage and the monochromatic stage, wherein the color stage has a first polarizer, and wherein the monochromatic stage has a second polarizer;

a common polarizer that is shared by the color stage and the monochromatic stage;

a white-red-green-blue converter that is configured to receive red-green-blue image data and convert the red-green-blue image data into white-red-green-blue image data, wherein the white-red-green-blue converter is configured to compute a brightness setting for the backlight based on the red-green-blue image data;

a backlight controller configured to receive the brightness setting from the white-red-green-blue converter and adjust the output of the light source in the backlight based on the brightness setting;

a color space converter configured to convert the white-red-green-blue image data into a color space; and

an image splitter configured to split the white-red-green-blue image data into a first channel supplied to the color stage and a second channel supplied to the monochromatic stage.

7. The display defined in claim 6 wherein the backlight includes quantum dot structures, wherein the color stage has a color filter layer with white, red, green, and blue color filter elements, and wherein the pixels of the monochromatic stage comprise pixels selected from the group consisting of:

twisted nematic pixels and in-plane switching pixels.

8. The display defined in claim 6, wherein the color space converter is configured to convert the white-red-green-blue image data into the CIE XYZ color space.

9. A display, comprising:

a color stage having a first layer of liquid crystal material and having pixels with a first pixel pitch;

a monochromatic stage having a second layer of liquid crystal material and having pixels with a second pixel pitch that is greater than the first pixel pitch; and

a backlight that produces light, wherein the color stage and monochromatic stage are coupled in tandem so that the light from the backlight passes through both the color stage and the monochromatic stage, wherein;

the pixels of the color stage are fringe field switching pixels; and

the pixels of the monochromatic stage comprise pixels selected from the group consisting of;

twisted nematic pixels and in-plane switching pixels.

10. The display defined in claim 9 wherein the backlight includes quantum dot structures, wherein the display comprises a shared polarizer that forms part of the color stage and part of the monochromatic stage, and wherein the shared polarizer includes at least two negative birefringence layers.