Capacitive Touch Sensor Mesh with Cutting Lines for Reduced Reflectivity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electronic devices with touch sensors face visibility issues due to external light reflection, affecting their functionality and user experience.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a sensing member with first and second sensing patterns featuring mesh lines and cutting lines that create openings, reducing reflectivity differences and making the sensing patterns less visible, thereby improving visibility and functionality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If continuous mesh lines are used in sensing patterns, then touch sensitivity is improved, but visibility deteriorates due to light reflection
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous mesh lines are segmented by introducing cutting lines that divide the mesh structure into discrete sections. This segmentation maintains the sensing functionality through distributed capacitance while reducing visibility by creating gaps that minimize light reflection surfaces and eliminate continuous reflective patterns.
Solution Approach 2:
The mesh lines are made non-uniform by applying cutting lines at specific locations, creating local variations in the structure. The cutting lines are strategically positioned to reduce reflectivity in critical viewing areas while preserving touch sensitivity in active touch zones, achieving different qualities in different regions of the same sensing pattern.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If mesh lines are made thinner to improve visibility, then visibility is improved, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Rather than uniformly thinning the mesh lines which would require high manufacturing precision, the patent segments the mesh lines using cutting lines. This approach maintains standard line thicknesses that are easier to manufacture while achieving visibility improvement through the segmented structure that reduces continuous reflection.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the structural parameter of the mesh lines from continuous to segmented by introducing cutting lines. This parameter change achieves visibility improvement without requiring changes to the line thickness parameter, thereby avoiding increased manufacturing precision requirements.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If cutting lines are added to open peripheral openings, then visibility is improved by reducing reflectivity, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cutting lines segment the mesh structure to create openings, improving visibility by reducing light reflection. The segmentation is implemented in a systematic pattern that, while adding structural elements, does so in a predictable and manufacturable way that limits the increase in device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The cutting lines serve multiple functions: they segment the mesh to reduce visibility, they create openings for light transmission, and they define the sensing pattern geometry. This multi-functionality reduces the need for additional separate structures, thereby limiting the increase in device complexity while achieving visibility improvement.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively prevents the sensing patterns from being visible under external light, enhancing the visibility and usability of electronic devices by reducing reflectivity and improving touch sensitivity.
Implementation Method 1
a second sensing pattern disposed on the display member and capacitively coupled to the first sensing pattern
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic device includes a display member including a plurality of display elements and a sensing member including a first sensing pattern disposed on the display member and a second sensing pattern disposed on the display member and capacitively coupled to the first sensing pattern. Each of the first and second sensing patterns includes a plurality of mesh lines to define a plurality of openings. Each of the first and second sensing patterns includes a unit mesh pattern including a central opening and a plurality of peripheral openings surrounding the central opening. A plurality of cutting lines, each of which opens at least two adjacent openings of the plurality of peripheral openings to each other, are defined in the unit mesh pattern. The cutting lines are arranged in a direction surrounding the central opening.