In-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel and trace layout thereof

• US 9,904,424 B2
• Filed: 10/16/2015
• Issued: 02/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Raydium Semiconductor Corporation
• Original Assignee: Raydium Semiconductor Corporation
• Inventors: Lee, Kun-Pei, Hsu, Yu-Chin, Lin, Yi-Ying
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Viet
• Application Number:
  US14/884,840
• Publication Number:
  US 20160109979A1
• Time in Patent Office: 865 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04103 Manufacturing, i.e. details related to manufacturing processes specially suited for touch sensitive devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04111 Cross over in capacitive digitiser, i.e. details of structures for connecting electrodes of the sensing pattern where the connections cross each other, e.g. bridge structures comprising an insulating layer, or vias through substrate
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04112 Electrode mesh in capacitive digitiser: electrode for touch sensing is formed of a mesh of very fine, normally metallic, interconnected lines that are almost invisible to see. This provides a quite large but transparent electrode surface, without need for ITO or similar transparent conductive material
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0443 using a single layer of sensing electrodes
• 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

An in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel and its trace layout are disclosed. Horizontal traces of first direction touch electrode and horizontal traces of MFL electrode are disposed at both upper-side and lower-side out of an active area of in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel respectively. The horizontal traces of MFL electrode are closer to the active area of in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel than the horizontal traces of first direction touch electrode to reduce the additional coupling between the traces and electrodes. At least one trace is disposed at right-side and left-side out of an active area of in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel to reduce entire RC loading of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel.

Claims

1. An in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel, comprising:

a plurality of pixels, a laminated structure of each pixel comprising;

a substrate;

a thin-film transistor layer disposed above the substrate, a first conductive layer and a second conductive layer being integrated in the thin-film transistor layer, wherein the first conductive layer, a source electrode, and a drain electrode are formed simultaneously, and the first conductive layer is only disposed out of an active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel, and the second conductive layer is connected with a transparent conductive layer coupled to a common voltage, the second conductive layer and the transparent conductive layer are both disposed above the source electrode;

the second conductive layer and the transparent conductive layer are connected through a via above the source electrode;

a liquid crystal layer, disposed above the thin-film transistor layer;

a color filtering layer, disposed above the liquid crystal layer; and

a glass layer, disposed above the color filtering layer;

wherein horizontal traces of a first direction touch electrode and horizontal traces of a multi-function electrode are disposed at both an upper-side and a lower-side out of the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel respectively, and the horizontal traces of the multi-function electrode are closer to the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel than the horizontal traces of the first direction touch electrode;

at least one driving integrated circuit (IC) is disposed out of the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel.

2. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein at least one trace is disposed at a right-side and/or a left-side out of the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel, one terminal of the trace is coupled to the horizontal traces of first direction touch electrode disposed at the lower-side out of the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel.

3. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 2, wherein another terminal of the trace is coupled to at least one first direction touch electrode disposed in the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel.

4. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 3, wherein at least one perpendicular trace extends from the horizontal traces of multi-function electrode, and the horizontal traces and the perpendicular trace of multi-function electrode surround the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel, the perpendicular trace of multi-function electrode is disconnected at a specific position for the trace passing through.

5. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 2, wherein another terminal of the trace is coupled to the horizontal traces of first direction touch electrode disposed at the upper-side out of the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel.

6. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 5, wherein at least one perpendicular trace extends from the horizontal traces of multi-function electrode, and the horizontal traces and the perpendicular trace of multi-function electrode surround the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel, the perpendicular trace of multi-function electrode is not disconnected.

7. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein at least one horizontal trace of multi-function electrode enters into the at least one driving integrated circuit.

8. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer are used for bridging a first direction electrode and used for bridging a multi-function electrode respectively at the upper-side out of the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel;

the second conductive layer and the transparent conductive layer are used for bridging the first direction electrode, used for bridging the multi-function electrode, and used for bridging a second direction electrode respectively at the lower-side out of the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel;

the at least one driving integrated circuit has more than two sets of first direction touch electrode pins and multi-function electrode pins;

the number of the at least one driving IC is determined according to a size of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel.

9. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 8, wherein at least two traces of the second conductive layer are aligned in parallel within the active area of the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel.

10. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 8, wherein the first direction touch electrode, the multi-function electrode, and the second direction touch electrode cover different parts of the plurality of pixels, and the multi-function electrode is disposed between the first direction touch electrode and the second direction touch electrode.

11. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 10, wherein transparent conductive layers of the pixels in the coverage of the first direction touch electrode are connected to each other, transparent conductive layers of the pixels in the coverage of the second direction touch electrode are connected to each other, and transparent conductive layers of the pixels in the coverage of the multi-function electrode are connected to each other.

12. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 8, wherein the first direction touch electrode is a transmitter electrode and the second direction touch electrode is a receiver electrode, or the first direction touch electrode is the receiver electrode and the second direction touch electrode is the transmitter electrode.

13. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel is suitable for displays using in-plane switching liquid crystal (IPS) technology, fringe field switching (FFS) technology, or advanced hyper-viewing angle (AHVA) technology.

14. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the color filtering layer comprises a color filter and a black matrix resist, and the black matrix resist has good light resistance.

15. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 14, wherein the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer are disposed under the black matrix resist.

16. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer are coupled or not.

17. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer are aligned horizontally, perpendicularly, or in a mesh type.

18. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the second conductive layer is disposed above the transparent conductive layer.

19. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the second conductive layer is disposed under the transparent conductive layer.

20. The in-cell mutual-capacitive touch panel of claim 1, wherein the transparent conductive layer is an indium tin oxide (ITO) layer.