OLED Pixel-Defining Layer Layout for High-Transmittance Component Areas
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing display apparatuses face challenges in maintaining light transmittance while defining emission areas for organic light-emitting diodes, especially in component areas where additional functions are integrated, leading to inefficiencies in image display and functionality.
Innovation Solution
A display apparatus design that includes a pixel-defining layer with varying thicknesses and spacers to define emission areas, combined with organic and inorganic insulating layers, ensuring light transmittance through transmission portions while maintaining image quality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a pixel-defining layer is used to define emission areas of organic light-emitting diodes, then image display quality is improved, but light transmittance in transmission portions is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The pixel-defining layer is designed with spatially varying thickness: thicker in display areas to ensure precise emission area definition and image quality, and thinner in transmission portions to minimize light transmittance reduction. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction by optimizing each region's properties according to its specific functional requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The pixel-defining layer is segmented into different thickness regions corresponding to display areas and transmission portions. This segmentation allows the layer to simultaneously fulfill conflicting requirements in different spatial zones, maintaining high emission area definition precision where needed while preserving light transmittance where transmission is required.
2Illumination intensity
If insulating layers with openings are stacked to create transmission portions, then light transmittance is improved, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple insulating layers with openings are merged into a single integrated pixel-defining layer structure. This consolidation maintains the light transmittance benefits of stacked openings while reducing manufacturing complexity by eliminating the need to stack and align multiple separate insulating layers, thus resolving the contradiction between transmittance improvement and manufacturing simplicity.
3Ease of manufacture
If the pixel-defining layer has uniform thickness, then manufacturing is simplified, but light transmittance in transmission portions is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The pixel-defining layer transitions from uniform thickness to locally differentiated thickness, being thinner in transmission portions to enhance light transmittance while maintaining adequate thickness in display areas for proper emission area definition. This local quality variation resolves the contradiction by prioritizing transmittance in specific regions without compromising overall manufacturing feasibility.
Data Source
AI summary
A display device includes: a substrate including a display area and a component area; a first pixel group on the display area; a second pixel group and a transmission area on the component area; an organic insulating layer on the substrate and including an opening corresponding to the transmission area; a display element on the organic insulating layer and including a pixel electrode and an opposite electrode; and a pixel-defining layer covering edges of the pixel electrode and defining an emission area of the display element, wherein the organic insulating layer includes a planarization area and a reduction area on the component area, the reduction area having a thickness that decreases in a direction from the planarization area to the opening, and a portion of the pixel-defining layer is on the reduction area.