Patent Publication Number: US-2013229366-A1

Title: Support for an Optically Bonded Display Device

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. Section 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/606,321, filed Mar. 2, 2012, and titled “Screen Edge,” the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     The configuration of computing device is ever increasing. For example, use of computing devices expanded with the advent of a desktop personal computer. Configurations continued to expand and thus so too did the pervasiveness of computing device in everyday life, such as from the desktop personal computer to laptop computer, netbooks, mobile communications devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers, and so on. 
     However, as these configurations continue to expand conventional techniques that were utilized to provide display devices associated with the computing devices could be inadequate for these new configurations. For example, conventional display devices in these new configurations could form visual display artifacts during operation and user interaction, which could hinder a user&#39;s interaction and experience with the devices. 
     Furthermore, there is an increasing focus in some instances on making thinner, lightweight and yet robust and durable devices. This often involves thinner components than traditionally used, such as touch panel assemblies, display modules, and so on. These components may be fragile, and therefore techniques may be employed to enhance the robustness of these components. These techniques, however, may cause the devices to have increased sensitivity to assembly and user induced forces during interaction with the device, which may cause display artifacts that may affect a user&#39;s interaction and experience with the device. 
     SUMMARY 
     Display device support techniques are described. In one or more implementations, an apparatus includes a touch panel assembly and a display housing. The touch panel assembly includes one or more touch sensors and a transparent surface. The display housing secures a display module, the display module optically bonded to the touch panel assembly. A support is disposed to contact the touch panel assembly and the display housing. 
     In one or more implementations, a display device includes an external enclosure forming a cavity, a touch panel assembly secured by the external enclosure and defining a first perimeter, and a display housing that secures a display module. The display housing is disposed within the cavity and the display module is optically bonded to the touch panel assembly such that a gap is formed between the display module and the touch panel assembly. A support is disposed within the gap configured to reduce deflection of the display module caused responsive to a pressure applied due to user interact with the touch panel assembly. 
     In one or more implementations, a display device includes an external enclosure forming a cavity, a touch panel assembly secured by the external enclosure to define a first perimeter, and a display housing that secures a display module. The display housing is disposed within the cavity and forms a second perimeter that is disposed at least partially within the first perimeter. The display module is optically bonded to the touch panel assembly thereby defining a third perimeter disposed at least partially within the second perimeter. A support is disposed between the touch panel assembly and the display housing and between the first and third perimeters. 
     This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The detailed description is described with reference to the accompanying figures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. The use of the same reference numbers in different instances in the description and the figures may indicate similar or identical items. Entities represented in the figures may be indicative of one or more entities and thus reference may be made interchangeably to single or plural forms of the entities in the discussion. 
         FIG. 1  is an illustration of an environment in an example implementation that is operable to employ a display device utilizing the support techniques described herein. 
         FIG. 2  depicts a system in an example implementation in which manufacture of a display device is shown 
         FIG. 3  depicts a system in which a top view of the computing device of  FIG. 1  that incorporates the display device of  FIG. 2  is shown. 
         FIG. 4  illustrates an example system that includes the support of  FIG. 1 . 
         FIG. 5  depicts a system showing an example of the touch panel assembly and display module in greater detail. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Overview 
     Computing devices may assume a variety of configurations. Additionally, these configurations may utilize a wide range of devices from a variety of different manufacturers, even to form a single product for sale. For example, a manufacturer of a computing device may utilize a variety of different display modules from a variety of different sources. Accordingly, although these display modules may provide similar functionality, the size of the modules may vary, one to another. 
     Further, construction of the touch and display assemblies during optical bonding may create gaps between underside of touch panel assembly and/cover glass and top of the display module and housing along the perimeter of the display. Due to oversized cover glass/touch module, cantilever action may be encountered during user interaction, which may result in visual artifacts due to flexing a liquid crystal display module in a touch panel device or other display device. These display artifacts can be temporary (e.g., due to user interaction) or permanent (e.g., due to stresses caused during assembly and construction). This is also applicable to the non-touch type interactive devices where the assembly stress/defection may create a permanent visual display artifact. 
     Display device support and construction techniques are described. In one or more implementations, a support is described that may be utilized in a display device to support a display device and touch panel assembly. For example, the display module (e.g., LCD display module) may be optically bonded to a touch panel assembly. However, there may be size differences in the display module relative to an external enclosure that is configured to retain the display module and touch panel assembly. The gap is cause by optical bonding between touch and display modules. The oversized cover glass/touch panel enhances the stress acting in the gap area due to the cantilever effect, which may cause visual artifacts as describe above. 
     Accordingly, a support may be disposed within this gap, which may be configured to provide contact between the display housing and the touch panel assembly. Therefore, deflection of or the stress on the display module may be reduced when confronted with pressures applied to the touch panel assembly, e.g., to make a gesture. In this way, visual artifacts produced by the display module responsive to this and other pressures (e.g., pressures cause during manufacture of the display device) may be reduced and even eliminated. Further discussion of these and other techniques may be found in relation to the following sections. 
     In the following discussion, an example environment is first described that may employ the techniques described herein. Example procedures are then described which may be performed in the example environment as well as other environments. Consequently, performance of the example procedures is not limited to the example environment and the example environment is not limited to performance of the example procedures. 
     Example Environment 
       FIG. 1  is an illustration of an environment  100  in an example implementation that is operable to employ techniques described herein. The illustrated environment  100  includes a computing device  102  having a processing system  104  and a computer-readable storage medium that is illustrated as a memory  106  although other confirmations are also contemplated as further described below. 
     The computing device  102  may be configured in a variety of ways. For example, a computing device may be configured as a computer that is capable of communicating over a network, such as a desktop computer, a mobile station, an entertainment appliance, a set-top box communicatively coupled to a display device, a wireless phone, a game console, educational interactive devices, point of sales devices, and so forth. Thus, the computing device  102  may range from full resource devices with substantial memory and processor resources (e.g., personal computers, game consoles) to a low-resource device with limited memory and/or processing resources (e.g., traditional set-top boxes, hand-held game consoles). Additionally, although a single computing device  102  is shown, the computing device  102  may be representative of a plurality of different devices, such as multiple servers utilized by a business to perform operations such as by a web service, a remote control and set-top box combination, an image capture device and a game console configured to capture gestures, and so on. In addition, it may apply to apparatuses including a plurality of display devices, e.g., a clam shell configuration. 
     The computing device  102  is further illustrated as including an operating system  108 , although other embodiments are also contemplated in which an operating system is not employed. The operating system  108  is configured to abstract underlying functionality of the computing device  102  to applications  110  that are executable on the computing device  102 . For example, the operating system  108  may abstract the processing system  104 , memory  106 , network, and/or display device  112  functionality of the computing device  102  such that the applications  110  may be written without knowing “how” this underlying functionality is implemented. The application  110 , for instance, may provide data to the operating system  108  to be rendered and displayed by the display device  112  without understanding how this rendering will be performed. The operating system  108  may also represent a variety of other functionality, such as to manage a file system and user interface that is navigable by a user of the computing device  102 . 
     The computing device  102  may support a variety of different interactions. For example, the computing device  102  may include one or more hardware devices that are manipulable by a user to interact with the device, such as a keyboard, cursor control device (e.g., mouse), and so on. The computing device  102  may also support gestures, which may be detected in a variety of ways. The computing device  102 , for instance, may support touch gestures that are detected using touch panel functionality of the computing device  102 . 
     The sensors  114 , for instance, may be configured to provide touch panel functionality in conjunction with the display device  112 . The sensors  114 , for instance, may be configured as capacitive, resistive, acoustic, light (e.g., sensor in a pixel), and so on that are configured to detect proximity of an object. An example of this is illustrated in  FIG. 1  in which first and second hands  116 ,  118  of a user are illustrated. The first hand  116  of the user is shown as holding a external enclosure  120  (e.g., housing) of the computing device  102 . The second hand  118  of the user is illustrated as providing one or more inputs that are detected using touch panel functionality of the display device  112  to perform an operation, such as to make a swipe gesture to pan through representations of applications in the start menu of the operating system  108  as illustrated. This may also apply to user input with an active or passive stylus. 
     However, interaction with the display device  112  in this manner may cause visual artifacts to be output by the display device  112  in some conventional optically bonded display devices. For example, a pressure applied by one or more fingers of the user&#39;s hand  118  may cause the display device  112  to display a visual artifact. Further, visual artifacts may be caused in a variety of other ways by conventional display devices, such as due to stresses introduced during manufacture of the display device  112 , manufacture of the display device  112  as part of the computing device  102  (e.g., within the external enclosure  120 ), and so on. In such a case, the display artifact may become permanent. Accordingly, techniques are presented herein in which a support  122  is utilized as part of the display device  112 , which may be configured to reduce or even eliminate visual artifacts and other complications, further description of which may be found in relation to the following discussion and associated figure. 
       FIG. 2  depicts a system  200  in an example implementation in which manufacture of a display device  112  is shown. This system  200  illustrates manufacture of the display device  112  using first and second stages  202 ,  204 . At the first stage, the external enclosure  120  is illustrated as forming a cavity in which components of the computing device  102  may be disposed within. These components may include the processing system  104 , memory  106 , display device  112 , and other components of the computing device  102 . 
     The display device  112  is illustrated as including a touch panel assembly  202 , display module  204 , and display housing  206 . The touch panel assembly  202  is configured to support touch functionality, such as through use of one or more sensors  114  as described in relation to  FIG. 2  to detect proximity of an object. 
     The display module  204  is illustrated as secured within a display housing  206  and installed within the cavity of the external enclosure  120 . The display module  204  may be configured in a variety of different ways, such as a liquid crystal display module, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) module, and so on. The display module  204  is further illustrated as disposed within a display housing  206 , which is configured to secure components of the display module  204  together, an example of which is shown and described in relation to  FIG. 5 . 
     At the first stage  202 , the touch panel assembly  202  is illustrated as being positioned over the display module  204  and display housing  206  within the external enclosure  120 . At the second stage  204 , the touch panel assembly  202  is optically bonded to the display module  204 , e.g., using an optical bonding adhesive  208  or other material. Further, the touch panel assembly  202  is also secured to the external enclosure  120 , such as through use of an adhesive between the touch panel assembly and a ledge of the external enclosure  120 . In this way, the touch panel assembly  202  is secured to both the external enclosure  120  and the display module  204 . 
     During this manufacture, however, a gap  210  may be formed between the touch panel assembly  202  and the display housing  206 . This gap  210  may cause pressure applied to the touch panel assembly  202  (e.g., from a finger of the user&#39;s hand  118  of  FIG. 1 ) to be transmitted to the display module  204 . This pressure may cause deflections of the display module  204  and therefore output of visual artifacts by the display module  204 . 
     For example, a system  300  in shown in  FIG. 3  in which a top view of the computing device  102  of  FIG. 1  incorporates the display device  112  of  FIG. 2 . Securing of the touch panel assembly  202  to the external enclosure  120  is illustrated as defining a first perimeter, such as along the ledge of the external enclosure  120  shown in  FIG. 2 . 
     The display housing  206  is disposed within the cavity of the housing  202 . As such, an edge along the display housing  206  may be used to define a second perimeter. Additionally, the display module  204  may be optically bonded to portions of the touch panel assembly  202  as shown in  FIG. 2 . This optical bonding may therefore define a third perimeter that is disposed at least partially within the second perimeter defined by the display housing  206 , which is disposed at least partially along the first perimeter defined by the securing of the touch panel assembly  202  to the external enclosure  120 . 
     In conventional techniques, a gap formed between the first and third perimeters, e.g., proximal to the second perimeter, may cause pressure applied at that gap to create visual artifacts. An example of this is illustrated as a pressure applied by a finger of the user&#39;s hand  118  although other examples are also contemplated. 
     Additionally, residual stress may develop as part of the manufacturing process because of the use different materials in an optical bonded display bonding stack, such as a stack that includes the touch panel assembly  202 , display module  204 , and display housing  206 . This may also include applied stresses resulting from the assembly of the bonded devices to the external enclosure  120 , such as in thin devices formed to support a hand held form factor. 
     Further, some display modules may be configured to support wide-angle viewing, such as plane switching, plane line switching, and so on. However, such devices may have increased sensitivity to applied and residual pressures, e.g., stresses. For example, these pressures may change a polarization of embedded liquid crystals and therefore cause visual effects that are viewable by a user of the display device  112 , such as light leakage, different color bands, edge pooling, and so forth. These visual effects may be amplified along the edges, e.g., one or more of the perimeters previously described due to applied stress resulting from assembly of components in thin devices. These defects may have a significant impact on a user&#39;s experience with the display device  112  and product reliability. Conventional resolution of this issue involved reconstruction of the display module, which can be prohibitively expensive and may be unable to address the assembly caused stresses. 
     Accordingly, the display device  112  may leverage techniques described herein to reduce and even eliminate these issues. These techniques may include an assembly construction approach, method and materials to solve these issues. For example, the support  122  as described in  FIG. 1  may be used to remove unsupported areas in the assembly of bonded displays in the external enclosure. The support  122  may be configured in a variety of ways, such as part of a touch panel assembly  202 , display module  204 , display housing  206 , implemented as a discrete component (e.g., applied by dispense process), and so on, an example of which is described in the following discussion and related figure. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates an example system  400  that includes the support  122  of  FIG. 1 . As before, the touch panel assembly  202  is optically bonded to the display module  204  and secured to the external enclosure  120 , which defines the first and third perimeters described above. The support  122  is disposed between the first and third perimeters, e.g., proximal to the second perimeter described above, and between the touch panel assembly  202  and the display housing  206 . Thus, the support  122  is disposed within the gap  210  described in relation to  FIG. 2  and is illustrated in this example as contacting the touch panel assembly  202  and the display housing  206 . 
     The support  122  may be configured and formed in a variety of ways. For example, the support  122  may be added after the touch panel assembly  202  has been optically bonded to the display module  204 . This may be performed by inserting the support  122  as a shim in the gap  210  between the touch panel assembly  202  and the display housing  206 . In another instance, the display housing  206  may be modified to contact the touch panel assembly  202  and thus the support  122  may be configured as part of the display housing  206 . In a further instance, the support  122  may be formed as an adhesive that is configured to harden to act as the support  122 . 
     The support  122  may also be formed before the touch panel assembly  202  is bonded to the display module  204 . This may be achieved in a variety of ways. For instance, the support  122  may be formed by dispensing adhesive on an underside of the touch panel assembly  202 , which may then harden and act as a support. Material may also be applied using a printing process on the touch panel assembly  202  and/or the display housing  206  to form the support  122 . Film adhesives may also be applied to act as the support  122 , liquid optical bonding may be utilized, open-cell or closed-cell interface material such as UV-cured adhesives, epoxies, urethanes, acrylic and silicone materials, and so on. Thus, the support  122  may be formed in a variety of ways to reduce stresses that may cause visual artifacts to be formed by the display module  204 . 
       FIG. 5  depicts a system  500  showing an example of the touch panel assembly  202  and display module  204  in greater detail. In this example, the touch panel assembly  202  is formed using a protective glass  502  and touch sensors  504 . As before, the touch sensors  504  may assume a variety of configurations, the illustrated example being capacitive but other examples are also contemplated. 
     The display module  204  includes a polarizer  506  and liquid crystals  508  disposed between two sheets of LCD glass  510 ,  512 . In the illustrated example, an edge lit configuration is shown in which LEDs  514  project light into a light guide plate  516  and employs a reflector  518  to cause the light to pass through a polarizer  520  and through the light crystals  508  described previously. 
     Components of the display module  204  are disposed within a display housing  206 . In the illustrated example, the components are secured to the housing using tape  522 , although other examples are also contemplated. As previously described, pressures may be encountered during manufacture of these components. Examples of this are illustrated using phantom arrows showing pressure of the display housing  206  against a side of the external enclosure  120  as well as pressures caused by flexing of the components during installation in the external enclosure  120 . Accordingly, the support  122  may be positioned to reduce and even eliminate compressive stresses as described above. Although use of an LCD module is shown, other examples of display device modules are also contemplated. 
     Conclusion 
     Although the invention has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described. Rather, the specific features and acts are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claimed invention.