KR20020078295A - Keypad backlight controlling apparatus and method for mobile communication device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: An apparatus and a method for controlling a backlight of a keypad in a mobile communication terminal are provided to decrease the current consumption of a battery and increase the use time of a terminal by selectively backlighting only a frequently used key portion without backlighting portions not used frequently. CONSTITUTION: IF a function key unit is set as a backlight unit to be initially turned on(S22), a luminescent element circuit of the function key unit is driven(S23). If a numerical key unit is set as a backlight unit to be initially turned on(S22), a luminescent element unit of the numerical key unit is driven(S24). If a key of the numerical key unit is pushed in a state in which the function key unit is backlighted(S25), the luminescent element circuit of the numerical key unit is driven for backlighting the numerical key unit(S26). If a key of the function key unit is pushed in a state in which the numerical key unit is backlighted(S25), the luminescent element circuit of the function key unit is driven for backlighting the function key unit(S27).

Description

KEYPAD BACKLIGHT CONTROLLING APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION DEVICE}

The present invention relates to a user interface technology of a mobile communication terminal, and in particular, the keypad backlight control apparatus of a mobile communication terminal to extend the use time of the terminal by reducing the battery consumption by individually controlling the backlight of the keypad according to the use and It is about a method.

In general, a mobile communication terminal is limited to its size in order to make it easy to carry and move with a pedestrian-oriented device, and consumer preferences also prefer a small terminal.

In addition, since the mobile communication terminal has a limitation in that power cannot be supplied indefinitely due to the nature of carrying, the use time is also limited to the time during which the battery power is supplied.

Therefore, in order to extend the use time of the terminal by using a battery having a limited power source, a battery having a large capacity should be installed or battery consumption should be reduced as much as possible.

However, when a large battery is installed in order to prolong the use time of the terminal, it does not meet the needs of users who are getting smaller. Therefore, a lot of efforts are being made by the developer to minimize the battery consumption. .

In general, one of the functions that consumes the most power in the terminal is a backlight function of the terminal for the convenience of key operation at a dark place or at night, and the backlight of the keypad or LCD (LCD) ( BACKLIGHT) function.

In particular, the keypad backlight setting method of the conventional mobile communication terminal is as follows.

First, there are various backlight setting types such as "always on", "always off", "off after 10 seconds", "off after 30 seconds", "on when flip / folder open", etc. It means the waiting time when is not pressed. If you press the key, the time is continuously extended.

1 is a keypad backlight driving circuit diagram of a conventional mobile communication terminal, and eight light emitting elements (LED1 to LED8) connected in parallel to be distributed at regular intervals on the back of the keypad so that the entire keypad is evenly illuminated; A control element Q1 for controlling on / off of the light emitting elements LED1 to LED8; The current limiting element R1 controls the flow of current to control the brightness of the light emitting elements LED1 to LED8.

Accordingly, the central processing unit (not shown) of the terminal turns on the control element Q1 at the time of backlight, thereby turning on all the light emitting elements LED1 to LED8 to illuminate.

That is, the collector of the control element Q1 is connected to the cathode side of the light emitting elements LED1 to LED8 connected in parallel, and the base thereof is connected to one port of a central processing unit (not shown), so that 'high' or 'low' It is 'turned on' or 'turned off' depending on the input of the signal.

At this time, the current limiting element R1 connected to the emitter of the control element Q1 has a low current flow when the resistance value is high, which lowers the brightness of the light emitting device and increases the current flow when the resistance value is low. To increase the brightness.

However, in the configuration as shown in FIG. 1, it is not possible to selectively control each light emitting element, and all light emitting elements are connected in parallel and turned on or off by one control element Q1. Since the entire keypad is illuminated, unnecessary current is consumed, which shortens the usage time of the terminal.

Therefore, the present invention was created to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and selectively backlit only the key part mainly used in the terminal according to the needs of the user, and does not turn on the unnecessary part, so that the current of the battery It is an object of the present invention to provide a keypad backlight control apparatus and method of a mobile communication terminal to reduce the consumption to increase the use time of the terminal.

1 is a keypad backlight driving circuit diagram of a conventional mobile communication terminal.

2 is an exemplary view showing a keypad configuration of a general mobile communication terminal.

Figure 3 is an exemplary view showing a circuit configuration for controlling the keypad backlight according to the key use according to the present invention.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a backlight configuration process according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of performing a backlight in a state where a backlight environment is set by the process of FIG. 4; FIG.

The present invention for achieving the above object, in the mobile communication terminal configured to perform a keypad backlight by placing a plurality of light emitting elements on the back of the keypad, the light emitting element is the use of the key of the position where the light emitting element is arranged on the keypad A light emitting unit configured to set a predetermined number to a group so as to be selectively turned on / off according to the control unit; Can each of the groups of light emitting elements of the light emitting portion be driven? A driving unit; And a controller for selectively controlling the driving unit by detecting a user's backlight environment and using the terminal by flipping or opening a folder.

In addition, the present invention is to arrange a plurality of light emitting elements on the back of the keypad to perform the keypad backlight, the light emitting element can be selectively turned on / off according to the purpose of the key of the position where the light emitting element is arranged on the keypad Each of the predetermined circuits is provided with a driving circuit, and according to the user's backlight configuration, the light emitting device group located at a specific key portion of the keypad can be turned on when the mobile terminal is flipped or the folder is opened. do.

In addition, the present invention is a mobile communication terminal configured to perform a keypad backlight by arranging the light emitting devices set in a group by a group according to the purpose of the key to the back of the keypad, the backlight unit according to the purpose of the key When the user inputs a menu key for setting the backlight environment, the backlight unit to be turned on by default is displayed on the display window of the terminal and various options are displayed, and when the flip / folder of the terminal is opened by setting the options, The light emitting device group set as the backlight unit may be turned on.

Hereinafter, an embodiment according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The present invention is to increase the use time of the mobile communication terminal, and relates to a method for individually controlling the keypad backlight for each use of the key for efficient use of battery consumption current.

That is, each predetermined number of light emitting devices for keypad backlight can be selectively turned on / off according to the purpose of the key (in this embodiment, when the number of light emitting devices to be arranged on the back of the keypad is eight, the number of light emitting devices should be 2 or less). 4) and determine the purpose of the key to be used when there is a key input, and selectively turn on the light emitting element disposed for the keypad light of the purpose to consume current of the battery. It is characterized in that to reduce the.

In general, when looking at the keypad configuration of the terminal, as shown in Figure 2 it can be largely divided into a function key (SEND, END, CLR, etc.) for the menu call or cursor movement and the numeric key (0 to 9) for telephone number input have.

In general, when checking messages or searching phone numbers on a terminal, only function keys are used, not numeric keys. In other words, there is no need to illuminate the numeric keys.

In addition, most users use more function keys than numeric keys except when making a first call or registering a new phone number.

Numeric (or character) keys are usually located at the bottom or bottom of the keypad, and function keys are located at the top.

Therefore, the light emitting devices for the keypad backlight are divided into function keys and numeric keys, and are arranged at the top, middle, and bottom of the keypad, and connected to selectively control the light emitting devices arranged separately, thereby suppressing unnecessary current consumption. will be.

For example, when the number of light emitting elements to be arranged in the entire keypad is eight, four light emitting elements may be arranged in the function key portion and four light emitting elements may be arranged in the numeric key portion.

Each of the four light emitting elements arranged as described above is controlled by dividing the number of light emitting elements by the basic driving circuit as shown in FIG. 3, so that when only the function key portion is used, the control unit (not shown) is as shown in (a). The enable signal BACKLIGHT_EN1 is set to 'high' and the enable signal BACKLIGHT_EN2 is set to 'low' so that only the light emitting element of the function key portion is turned on. On the contrary, when only the numeric key portion is used, the controller (not shown) As shown in (b), the enable signal BACKLIGHT_EN1 is set to 'low' and the enable signal BACKLIGHT_EN2 is set to 'high' so that only the light emitting element of the numeric key portion is turned on, thereby reducing battery consumption. .

Then, the backlight control method of the present invention having the above-described technical configuration will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 4 and 5.

First, FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a backlight environment setting process according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, when a user presses a menu key (not shown) to set the backlight environment, an LCD window (not shown) of the terminal is shown. Various options for setting the backlight environment are displayed (S11).

At this time, select the basic items ("Always on", "Always off", "Off after 10 seconds", "Off after 30 seconds", "On when flip / folder open", etc.) as in the prior art. In addition to (S12), it is possible to further set the "backlight unit to be initially turned on" (S13).

Herein, the setting of the "backlight unit to be turned on for the first time" is a function for setting whether to backlight only the function key portion first or only the numeric key portion first when the flip / folder is opened.

Then, the process of the backlight in a state in which the backlight environment is set as described above will be described with reference to FIG.

Once the flip / folder is opened (S21), the terminal turns on the initial backlight unit set by the process of FIG. 4.

If the function key unit is set as the backlight unit to be initially turned on (S22), the light emitting device circuit of the function key unit is driven (S23), and if the numeric key unit is set as the backlight unit to be initially turned on, the light emitting device circuit of the numeric key unit is driven ( S24).

In this case, the function key part and the numeric key part are set according to the purpose of a key mainly used by the user, and in most cases, other keys are used in addition to the set key.

Therefore, when the key of the numeric key portion is pressed during the operation of the function key portion or the key of the function key portion is pressed during the operation of the numeric key portion (S25), the corresponding portion is also automatically backed up.

That is, when the key of the numeric key unit is pressed while the initial function key unit is backlit, the light emitting device circuit of the numeric key unit is driven to backlight the numeric key unit (S26), and when the key of the function key unit is pressed while the initial key unit is backlit, the function key unit is pressed. The light emitting device circuit is driven to backlight the function keys (S27).

In other words, although the entire keypad is backlit in flip / folder opening in the related art, in the present invention, only the part (function key part or numeric key part) mainly used in the present invention is backlit.

As described above, the keypad backlight control apparatus and method of a mobile communication terminal of the present invention selectively backs up only the key portion mainly used in the terminal according to the user's needs, and does not back up unnecessary portions, thereby consuming battery current. There is an effect to increase the use time of the terminal by reducing the.

Claims (6)

In a mobile communication terminal configured to perform a keypad backlight by arranging a plurality of light emitting elements on the back of the keypad, the light emitting elements may be selectively turned on / off according to the purpose of the key of the position where the light emitting elements are arranged on the keypad. A light emitting unit which sets the light into one group; A driving unit for driving each of the light emitting device groups of the light emitting unit; And a controller for selectively controlling the driver by detecting a user's backlight environment and using the terminal by flipping or opening a folder. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of light emitting devices that can be set in one group is divided into a plurality of groups, the number of light emitting devices being one group or less, according to the number of standard light emitting devices to be disposed behind the keypad for the backlight. Keypad backlight control device of a mobile communication terminal, characterized in that configured to. In order to perform a keypad backlight by arranging a plurality of light emitting elements on the back of the keypad, the light emitting elements are grouped one by one so as to be selectively turned on / off according to the purpose of the key of the position where the light emitting elements are arranged on the keypad. Each of the mobile communication terminals is provided with a driving circuit, and is configured to turn on only a group of light emitting elements positioned at a specific key portion of the keypad when the user's backlight environment is set, when the user flips or opens the folder. How to control keypad backlight. The method of claim 3, wherein the number of light emitting devices that can be set in one group is set to 2 or 4, which is less than the number when the number of standard light emitting devices to be arranged behind the keypad for the backlight is 8; The keypad backlight control method of a mobile communication terminal, which can be set differently according to the size of the terminal. In a mobile communication terminal configured to perform keypad backlighting by arranging light emitting devices, each of which is set as a group according to the purpose of a key, on the back of the keypad, wherein the light emitting device group is divided into backlight units according to the purpose of the key. When the menu key for backlight environment setting is input, the backlight unit to be turned on by default is displayed on the display window of the terminal and various options are displayed, and when the flip (or folder) of the terminal is opened, the initial backlight unit is set. A keypad backlight control method of a mobile communication terminal, characterized in that the light emitting device group is turned on. The method of claim 5, further comprising: determining a backlight unit to be initially turned on when the flip / folder of the mobile communication terminal is opened; A second step of driving the light emitting device circuit of the function key unit when the backlight unit to be turned on initially is set as the function key unit, and driving the light emitting device circuit of the numeric key unit when the backlight unit to be turned on is initially set; And a third step of driving a light emitting device circuit of the corresponding part when a key of a non-backlit part is pressed while the function key part or the numeric key part is backlit.