Electronic device

Abstract

The present application relates to an electronic device, which comprises a display unit, a display driving circuit and a circuit element. The display driving circuit is coupled to the display unit. The circuit element is arranged under a display area of the display unit, and the circuit element receives a dynamic update signal generated by the display driving circuit, the dynamic update signal comprising update rate information of the display unit, which can solve the problem that the prior art cannot effectively avoid the mutual interference between the display pixels and the under-screen circuit element when the update rate of the screen changes.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to an electronic device, and more particularly to an electronic device in which circuit elements are disposed under a screen. Background Technology

[0002] For today's consumer electronics (such as smartphones and tablets), manufacturers are pursuing the trend of maximizing screen size by relocating circuit components originally located on the screen bezel to the underside of the display area. This saves the space occupied by the circuit components on the bezel, thereby further reducing the bezel size. In this way, electronic products can have larger screens and achieve a better screen-to-body ratio within a fixed form factor. Currently, circuit components that can be moved to the underside of the screen include lenses, fingerprint sensors, and various light sensors.

[0003] However, the display pixels and the circuitry beneath the screen can interact. For example, the under-screen lens might receive light emitted from the display pixels, causing image distortion; conversely, when circuitry with light emitters (such as proximity sensors, time-of-flight sensors, and dot projectors) is located beneath the screen, the invisible light emitted can still affect the screen's image, potentially leading to bright spots. Various manufacturers have proposed numerous technical solutions to address this interference between display pixels and under-screen circuitry, such as solutions that prevent the under-screen circuitry from activating when the display pixels are emitting light, and solutions that prevent the display pixels from emitting light when the under-screen circuitry is activating.

[0004] As display technology advances towards higher screen resolutions and higher refresh rates, and as system computing and communication performance improves, the power consumption of electronic devices increases. With limited battery capacity, some manufacturers have proposed dynamically adjusting the screen refresh rate to reduce overall power consumption. For example, the screen refresh rate can be controlled to be above 90Hz in game or video mode, 60Hz–80Hz in normal operation mode, and 10Hz–30Hz for static images.

[0005] However, the changing screen refresh rate makes it difficult for electronic devices to accurately determine when the display pixels, which are opposite to the under-screen circuitry, should emit light. This renders many existing solutions for avoiding interference between display pixels and under-screen circuitry ineffective, and there is clearly a need for improvement. Summary of the Invention

[0006] One objective of this invention is to provide an electronic device that receives a dynamic update signal generated by a display driving circuit via an under-display circuit element. This dynamic update signal contains the update rate information of the display panel. Therefore, based on the operation of the current update rate driving circuit element, mutual interference between display pixels and under-display circuit elements can be reliably avoided, thus solving the problem of failure in the prior art when the screen update rate changes.

[0007] This invention discloses an electronic device comprising: a display unit, a display driving circuit, and a circuit element. The display driving circuit is coupled to the display unit. The circuit element is disposed under a display area of ​​the display unit, coupled to the display driving circuit, and receives a dynamic update signal generated by the display driving circuit, the dynamic update signal containing update rate information of the display unit. Attached Figure Description

[0008] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of an embodiment of the electronic device of the present invention;

[0009] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of the dynamic update signal in an electronic device according to the present invention;

[0010] Figure 3 This is a timing diagram illustrating how the circuit elements in this embodiment utilize the dynamic update signal;

[0011] Figure 4 This is a schematic diagram of the circuit elements of an embodiment of the electronic device of the present invention;

[0012] Figure 5 This is a timing diagram of the dynamic update signal according to another embodiment of the present invention;

[0013] Figure 6 This is a schematic diagram illustrating a second embodiment of the dynamic update signal in an electronic device embodiment of the present invention; and

[0014] Figure 7 This is a schematic diagram of a third embodiment of the dynamic update signal in the electronic device embodiment of the present invention.

[0015] [Figure Number Reference Guide]

[0016] 1. Electronic device

[0017] 12 Display driver circuit

[0018] 14 Circuit Components

[0019] 142 light-emitting units

[0020] 144 sensing units

[0021] 146 Control Circuit

[0022] 16 display units

[0023] 20 substrate

[0024] 202 Transmission Unit

[0025] 22 processing units

[0026] Display area A

[0027] A1 Partial Display Area

[0028] B Border Area

[0029] SS dynamic update signal

[0030] DS sensing signal

[0031] R1 sensor light

[0032] R2 reflected light

[0033] C instructions

[0034] LD optical drive signal

[0035] SD sensor drive signal

[0036] Time difference between t1, t2, and t3

[0037] t1', t2', t3' pulse width Detailed Implementation

[0038] To provide a better understanding of the structural features and effects achieved by the present invention, preferred embodiments and detailed descriptions are provided below:

[0039] Certain terms are used in the specification and claims to refer to specific elements. However, those skilled in the art will understand that different terms may be used to refer to the same element. Furthermore, the specification and claims do not distinguish elements by differences in name, but rather by differences in the overall technical aspects of the elements. The terms "comprising," "having," and "equipped with" used throughout the specification and claims are open-ended and should be interpreted as "comprising but not limited to." Moreover, the term "coupled" here includes both direct and indirect connection means. Therefore, if a first device is described as coupled to a second device, it means that the first device can be directly connected to the second device, or can be indirectly connected to the second device through other devices, enabling signal transmission between the first and second devices.

[0040] The following will further illustrate the characteristics and structure of the electronic device and its circuit elements disclosed in this invention through different embodiments:

[0041] First, please refer to Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of an embodiment of the electronic device of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the electronic device 1 of the present invention includes a display driving circuit 12, a circuit element 14, and a display unit 16. In this embodiment, the circuit element 14 includes a light-emitting unit 142, a sensing unit 144, and a control circuit 146. The control circuit 146 is coupled to the light-emitting unit 142 and the sensing unit 144 respectively. The display unit 16 may include a display panel such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, and the display unit 16 may also integrate a touch circuit that provides touch functionality. The light-emitting unit 142 and the sensing unit 144 included in the circuit element 14 are disposed under a display area A of the display unit 16. Therefore, the circuit element 14 in this embodiment is an under-display design. In this embodiment, the light-emitting unit 142 and the sensing unit 144 can be integrated with the control circuit 146 into a single integrated circuit chip. However, the present invention is not limited to this; the light-emitting unit 142 and the sensing unit 144 can also be disposed at different positions under the display area A and coupled to the control circuit 146. The display area A refers to the area where the display unit 16 has effective display pixels for displaying images and is not obscured by a border area B of the electronic device.

[0042] This embodiment uses a circuit element 14 comprising a light-emitting unit 142, a sensing unit 144, and a control circuit 146 as an example. This circuit element 14 can be used to construct various sensing elements such as a proximity sensor, a time-of-flight sensor, and a dot projector. However, this circuit element 14 is used in the description because its light-emitting unit 142 may affect screen imaging, making it crucial to avoid interference between the display pixels of the display unit 16 and the light-emitting unit 142. Compared to circuit elements such as lenses, fingerprint sensors, and ambient light sensors, which are typically only affected unilaterally by screen illumination, this circuit element 14 makes it easier to fully explain the various technical effects brought about by the improvements of this invention.

[0043] Continuing from the above, in this embodiment, circuit element 14 is further coupled to a display driving circuit 12, which is coupled to the display unit 16. Specifically, the display driving circuit 12 can be coupled to the control circuit 146 of the circuit element 14 via a transmission unit 202. The transmission unit 202 can be a flat cable or other electrical connection structure. The transmission unit 202 and the circuit element 14 can be disposed on a substrate 20, which can be the motherboard of an electronic product such as a mobile phone, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The display driving circuit 12 is generally composed of one or more independent integrated circuit chips, responsible for controlling the driving timing, driving voltage, and display data access of the display unit 16, so as to correctly drive the display unit 16 to display the image.

[0044] The display driving circuit 12 generates a dynamic refresh signal SS, which contains information about the refresh rate (i.e., refresh frequency) of the display unit 16. In this embodiment, the display driving circuit 12 outputs the dynamic refresh signal SS to the control circuit 146 of the circuit element 14. For example, please refer to... Figure 2 The figure shows one implementation of the dynamic update signal SS, which includes an instruction C composed of several pulse waves. Taking 5 pulse waves as an example, if the first and last pulse waves represent the start and end signals of instruction C respectively, then the 3 pulse waves between them can store at least three bits [2:0] of update rate information, that is, at least 8 kinds of update rate information. For example, 000 can represent 30Hz, 010 can represent 60Hz, 111 can represent 120Hz, and so on.

[0045] After receiving the dynamic update signal SS, circuit element 14 only needs to decode the instruction C to immediately confirm the current update rate of display unit 16. Therefore, the operation of circuit element 14 can cooperate with the display driver circuit 12. Please refer to... Figure 3The diagram shows the timing of how circuit element 14 utilizes the dynamic update signal SS in this embodiment. Since the position of circuit element 14 within the electronic device 1 is fixed, when the light-emitting unit 142 is positioned below the display unit 16, the sensing light R1 emitted by it only affects one or more rows of display pixels in a local display area A1 on the display unit 16. Therefore, by controlling the light-emitting unit 142 to operate at a specific time, the light-emitting time of the display pixels in the local display area A1 can be avoided, thus preventing interference with the display unit 16 that could lead to bright spots or flickering. For example, if it is necessary to control the light-emitting unit 142 to operate only after 200 scan lines in the local display area A1 are enabled, the diagram shows the position of the enabled scan lines in the local display area A1 within the dynamic update signal SS. Generally, by using this position as a reference and counting the time required to enable 200 scan lines, the light-emitting unit 142 can be controlled to operate at an appropriate time.

[0046] However, as previously described, when the refresh rate of the display unit 16 can be dynamically adjusted, such as... Figure 3 As shown, the operating time of the light-emitting unit 142 varies depending on the refresh rate of the display unit 16, rendering existing solutions for avoiding interference between display pixels and under-display circuitry ineffective. In contrast, in this embodiment of the invention, since the circuit element 14 only needs to decode the instruction C to immediately determine the current refresh rate of the display unit 16, the control circuit 146 of the circuit element 14 can calculate the operating time of the light-emitting unit 142 regardless of the current refresh rate of the display unit 16.

[0047] As described above, in this embodiment, circuit element 14 includes a light-emitting unit 142, enabling the circuit element 14 to be used to construct various sensing elements such as distance sensors, time-of-flight range sensors, and dot matrix projectors. The following explanation uses a distance sensor as an example to illustrate the operation of the circuit element 14 after receiving the dynamic update signal SS. Figure 4As shown, circuit element 14 may include a light driving signal LD ​​and a sensing driving signal SD. Control circuit 146 receives dynamic update signal SS and decodes the instruction C in the dynamic update signal SS to confirm the current update rate of display unit 16, and then calculates the time when light-emitting unit 142 should operate based on the update rate. At the time when light-emitting unit 142 needs to operate, control circuit 146 generates the light driving signal LD ​​and transmits it to light-emitting unit 142 to drive light-emitting unit 142 to emit a sensing light R1. At the same time, in this embodiment, control circuit 146 can further generate the sensing driving signal SD and transmit it to sensing unit 144 to drive sensing unit 144 to sense a reflected light R2 of sensing light R1. In addition, in some embodiments of the present invention, sensing unit 144 continuously senses light without stopping, so control circuit 146 can drive light-emitting unit 142 using only the light driving signal LD. The light-emitting unit 142 can be a light-emitting diode or a laser diode. The sensing light R1 mainly uses invisible light such as infrared light in general distance sensing operations.

[0048] In addition, such as Figure 1 The circuit element 14 shown transmits a sensing signal DS generated by the sensing unit 144 to a processing unit 22 on the substrate 20. The processing unit 22 can determine whether the display unit 16 is close to an object or a human body based on the sensing signal D provided by the sensing unit 144, and then determine whether to disable the touch function and display function of the display unit 16.

[0049] Through the above embodiments, the present invention allows the circuit element 14 to cooperate with the display driving circuit 12 so that regardless of the current update rate of the display unit 16, the circuit element 14 can calculate the time when the light-emitting unit 142 should operate based on the update rate, thereby avoiding interference from the sensing light R1 of the light-emitting unit 142 with the normal display color of the display pixels, and ensuring that the display unit 16 is less likely to form bright spots or flicker.

[0050] It is worth noting that the operating time of the aforementioned circuit element 14 can be calculated backward from the start signal of the instruction C, backward from the start signal of the instruction C, forward from the end signal of the instruction C, and backward from the end signal of the instruction C; the present invention is not limited to this. In fact, as long as the circuit element 14 can obtain the current update rate of the display unit 16 based on the dynamic update signal SS, it can cooperate with the display driving circuit 12 to control the operation of the light-emitting unit 142. The start or end pulse of the instruction C in the dynamic update signal SS can correspond to the timing signals generated by the display driving circuit 12, such as the tearing effect (TE) signal, scan line signal, or other synchronization signals. Furthermore, the instruction C can correspond to each frame displayed by the display unit 16 that the display driving circuit 12 needs to drive, or it can be generated every few frames.

[0051] As mentioned above, in other embodiments of the present invention, the circuit element 14 may also be a lens (image sensor), fingerprint sensor or other different application elements. However, even if the circuit element 14 does not have a light-emitting unit 142, the dynamic update signal SS can still be used to determine the current update rate of the display unit 16, thereby enabling the circuit element 14 to correspond to or avoid the light-emitting time of the display pixels of the display unit 16.

[0052] In fact, please refer to Figure 5 The diagram shows a timing illustration of the dynamic update signal SS according to another embodiment of the present invention. As explained in the previous embodiments, the operating time of the light-emitting unit 142 at different update rates of the display unit 16 is different, one of the main reasons being that the scan line enable time may vary at different update rates. Therefore, in this embodiment, the dynamic update signal SS can carry the scan line enable time (line time) information. For example, the width of each pulse in instruction C can correspond to the enable time of one (or more) scan lines. Since a longer scan line enable time is usually permissible at low update rates, while a shorter scan line enable time is usually permissible at high update rates, when the dynamic update signal SS sets the pulse width with the scan line enable time information, the result shown in the figure will be presented. This scan line enable time can be read by the control circuit 146 of the circuit element 14 through the setting timing circuit for subsequent calculations.

[0053] On the other hand, please refer to Figures 6 and 7, which show various implementations of the dynamic update signal SS according to embodiments of the present invention. In fact, in embodiments of the present invention, various methods that can output the update rate information of the display unit 16 to the control circuit 146 of the circuit element 14 can be adopted. For example, in Figure 6In this context, the update rate of display unit 16 can be encoded using the time differences t1, t2, and t3 between the start and end pulses of instruction C. Alternatively, in... Figure 7 In this instruction C, pulses of different widths are included, and the widths t1', t2', and t3' of the pulses can be used to encode the update rate of the display unit 16. Of course, in other implementation variations, the update rate of the display unit 16 may also be represented by the duty ratio of pulse width modulation.

[0054] To highlight the outstanding effects of the various embodiments of the present invention, the following description uses a commercially available product as an example of how to dynamically adjust the screen refresh rate. In products that claim to have adaptive functionality, to avoid flickering noticeable to the human eye during the screen refresh rate adjustment process, they typically make an adaptive, gradual adjustment between the initial refresh rate and the target refresh rate. For example, if the refresh rate of the display unit 16 needs to be reduced from 120Hz to 10Hz, it might be gradually adjusted sequentially in a very short time, from 120Hz to 90Hz, 60Hz, 30Hz, and 10Hz. In this case, if the method of the present invention, which allows the display driving circuit 12 to output a dynamic update signal SS to the circuit element 14, is adopted, the circuit element 14 can immediately confirm the current refresh rate of the display unit 16, and synchronously control the timing of the operation of the circuit element 14. Conversely, if the existing technology is adopted, even if the electronic device 1 eventually has other means to notify the circuit element 14 that the update rate of the display unit 16 has been reduced to 10Hz after the adaptive update rate adjustment is completed, the circuit element 14 has no way of knowing the current update rate of the display unit 16 during the entire adjustment process, and therefore cannot control the circuit element 14 to act at the appropriate time.

[0055] In summary, this invention provides an electronic device that receives a dynamic update signal generated by a display driving circuit via an under-display circuit element. This dynamic update signal contains the refresh rate information of the display panel. By adjusting the operation of the driving circuit element according to the current refresh rate, interference between the display pixels and the under-display circuit element can be reliably avoided. Especially when the under-display circuit element includes a light-emitting unit, the light emitted by the light-emitting unit can be prevented from interfering with the normal color display of the display pixels, ensuring that bright spots or flickering on the display panel are less likely to occur.

[0056] The above description is merely a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. All equivalent variations and modifications made in accordance with the shape, structure, features and spirit described in the claims of the present invention should be included within the scope of the claims of the present invention.

Claims

1. An electronic device, characterized in that, And includes: One display unit; A display driving circuit is coupled to the display unit; A circuit element is disposed under a display area of ​​the display unit. The circuit element is coupled to the display driving circuit and receives a dynamic update signal generated by the display driving circuit. The dynamic update signal contains a update rate information of the display unit. The circuit element includes a light-emitting unit, and the circuit element controls the operation of the light-emitting unit according to the update rate information.

2. The electronic device as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that, in, The circuit element includes a control circuit that decodes the update rate information and controls the operation of the circuit element according to the update rate information.

3. The electronic device as claimed in claim 2, characterized in that, in, The dynamic update signal includes an instruction containing the update rate information and a start signal. The circuit element calculates its operating time based on the update rate information and the start signal.

4. The electronic device as claimed in claim 2, characterized in that, in, The dynamic update signal includes an instruction containing the update rate information and a termination signal. The circuit element calculates its operating time based on the update rate information and the termination signal.

5. The electronic device as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that, in, The light-emitting unit is a light-emitting diode or a laser diode.

6. The electronic device as claimed in claim 2, characterized in that, in, The circuit element further includes a sensing unit. The control circuit generates a light driving signal to the light-emitting unit and a sensing driving signal to the sensing unit according to the dynamic update signal. The light-emitting unit generates a light source according to the light driving signal. The sensing unit receives a reflected light corresponding to the light source according to the sensing driving signal to generate a corresponding sensing signal.

7. The electronic device as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that, in, This circuit element constitutes a distance sensor, a time-of-flight range sensor, or a dot matrix projector.

8. The electronic device as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that, in, The circuit element operates according to the update rate information to avoid mutual interference between the display unit and the circuit element.

9. The electronic device as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that, in, The circuit element operates according to the update rate information to prevent the light emitted by the light-emitting unit from interfering with the normal display of the display unit.

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