Metal Layer Through-Holes for Camera Integration in Displays
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Solution Overview
Problem
Display devices face challenges in integrating additional functions such as cameras or sensors without compromising the display area, as existing methods do not effectively manage the overlap of these components with the display area while maintaining high transmittance for light or sound transmission.
Innovation Solution
A display device design featuring a metal layer with through-holes of varying shapes and sizes, including corner parts and curved edges, which overlap pixel circuits and display elements, allowing for the integration of components like cameras or sensors while maintaining a transmission area for light or sound transmission.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If components such as cameras or sensors are disposed to overlap the display area, then additional functions can be added while maintaining display area, but light transmittance is reduced and light diffraction occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The metal layer is designed with through-holes at specific locations corresponding to the display area, creating local transparency where needed while maintaining metal coverage in other areas. This allows light to pass through selectively at the through-holes while the metal layer provides shielding and structural support elsewhere, thus adding functional components without uniformly reducing light transmittance across the entire display area.
Solution Approach 2:
The metal layer is segmented into multiple regions: continuous metal portions providing shielding and structural support, and discrete through-holes allowing light transmission. This segmentation enables different parts of the metal layer to serve different functions - some areas block light while others transmit it, resolving the contradiction between adding components and maintaining light transmittance.
2Adaptability or versatility
If components such as cameras or sensors are disposed to overlap the display area, then additional functions can be added, but light diffraction is increased
Solution Approach 1:
The through-holes in the metal layer are designed with curved edges instead of sharp corners. This curvature reduces light diffraction by eliminating abrupt edges that would cause light waves to scatter. The rounded boundaries of the through-holes allow light to pass through with minimal diffraction, thus enabling component integration while reducing the harmful light diffraction effect.
3Strength
If a metal layer is disposed between the substrate and pixel circuits, then structural support and shielding are provided, but manufacturing complexity increases due to through-hole formation
Solution Approach 1:
The through-holes are formed in the metal layer during the manufacturing process before final assembly, using standard semiconductor fabrication techniques such as photolithography and etching. By incorporating the through-hole formation into the existing manufacturing workflow, the additional structural support function is achieved without requiring separate complex manufacturing steps, thus minimizing the increase in manufacturing complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A display device includes pixel circuits disposed on a substrate, each of the pixel circuits comprising a transistor and a storage capacitor, display elements electrically connected to the pixel circuits, and a metal layer disposed between the substrate and the pixel circuits, the metal layer comprising through-holes, wherein the through-holes of the metal layer include a first through-hole, and a second through-hole disposed adjacent to the first through-hole.