CN103488358A - Touch panel - Google Patents

Abstract

A touch panel including plural electrodes is provided. The plural electrodes form a sensing region and are disposed on the same plane. The sensing region has a first border and a second border substantially perpendicular to each other. The electrodes include one parallelogram electrode. The parallelogram electrode has two first edges parallel to the first border and two second edges parallel to neither the first border nor the second border.

Description

touch panel

technical field

The present invention is related to a touch system, and in particular to a technique for improving the accuracy of a sensing result in an edge area of a touch panel.

Background technique

With the advancement of technology, the operation interfaces of various electronic products have become more and more user-friendly in recent years. For example, through a touch screen, users can directly operate programs and input messages/texts/patterns on the screen with fingers or a stylus, saving the trouble of using input devices such as keyboards or keys. In fact, the touch screen usually consists of a sensing panel and a display disposed behind the sensing panel. The electronic device judges the meaning of the touch according to the position touched by the user on the sensing panel and the picture displayed on the display at that time, and executes the corresponding operation result.

Existing capacitive touch technologies can be classified into two types: self-capacitance and mutual-capacitance. Compared with the mutual-capacitive touch panel, the self-capacitive touch panel can be realized by a single-layer electrode structure with a simpler manufacturing process, and has the advantage of lower cost, so it is widely used in low-end electronic products. FIG. 1A is an example of a known self-capacitive touch panel. A plurality of triangular electrodes (such as electrodes E1 , E3 ) and a plurality of diamond-shaped electrodes (such as electrodes E2 , E4 , E5 ) are arranged in the sensing area 100 indicated by a dotted line frame. Each electrode in the figure is connected to an inductor (not shown). Taking the situation where the user touches the area of the electrode E2 as an example, the capacitance detected by the sensor connected to the electrode E2 will change; based on this, the subsequent control circuit can determine that the user's touch occurs at the location of the electrode E2.

The aforementioned sensors are disposed outside the sensing area 100 . Figure 1B presents a known wiring example. As shown in FIG. 1B , for the electrodes located at the edge of the sensing area, such as electrodes E1 and electrodes E2, the connection wires 11 for connecting the electrodes E1 to the sensor and the connection wires 12 for connecting the electrode E2 to the sensor can be directly connected to each other. to the corresponding sensor. In contrast, the connection line 13 used to connect the electrode E5 to the sensor includes a plurality of sections: the connection line 13 first passes through the gap between the electrodes E2 and E4, then passes through the gap between the electrodes E2 and E5, and then connects to Corresponding sensor. It can be understood that all the electrodes not adjacent to the edge of the sensing area 100 (such as the electrodes E4 , E5 ) must be connected to the sensors outside the sensing area 100 through relatively complex wiring.

In practice, in order to improve the sensing resolution, the smaller the gap between two adjacent electrodes, the better. The above-mentioned connection lines that have to pass through one or more gaps will undoubtedly force the electrode gap to be designed to be wider. Some gaps even have to accommodate multiple connection wires crossing. Since the connecting wires passing through the narrow gaps usually need to be fabricated using a photomask, the production cost of the touch panel will be greatly increased.

On the other hand, since the material of the connection wire is usually metal that is also affected by the user's touch, the connection wire passing through the gap may cause the control circuit to misjudge the location of the touch. For example, if the user touches between the electrodes E2 and E4, the connection wire 13 passing through the gap between the electrodes E2 and E4 will also be affected, thereby causing the sensor connected to the electrode E5 to detect a change in capacitance. When the detection result of the sensor connected to the electrode E5 is also taken into consideration, the position of the touch determined by the control circuit will obviously have an error.

Contents of the invention

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention proposes a new electrode shape/configuration applied to a touch panel. By adopting a properly configured parallelogram electrode, the situation that the connecting wire crosses the electrode gap can be completely avoided or greatly reduced, thus solving the previous problem. In the technology, the problem of low sensing resolution caused by the configuration of the connecting wire, the problem of high production cost, and the problem of misjudging the position of the touch occurred.

A specific embodiment according to the present invention is a touch panel, which includes a plurality of electrodes constituting a sensing area and located on the same plane. The sensing area has a first boundary and a second boundary perpendicular to each other. The plurality of electrodes includes a parallelogram electrode having two first sides parallel to the first boundary and two second sides not parallel to the first boundary and the second boundary

A specific embodiment according to the present invention is a touch panel, which includes a plurality of sensors, a plurality of connection lines and a plurality of electrodes. One end of each connection line is connected to one of the plurality of sensors. The plurality of electrodes are connected to the plurality of connection lines to form a sensing area and are located on the same plane. The sensing area has a first boundary and a second boundary perpendicular to each other, and there are multiple gaps between the plurality of electrodes. The plurality of electrodes includes a parallelogram electrode having two first sides parallel to the first boundary and two second sides not parallel to the first boundary and the second boundary. Wherein the disposition of the plurality of electrodes optimizes a quantity of a part of the plurality of connection lines passing through the plurality of gaps.

The advantages and spirit of the present invention can be further understood through the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings.

Description of drawings

FIG. 1A shows an example of electrode configuration in a current self-capacitive touch panel; FIG. 1B is a corresponding wiring example of connecting wires.

FIG. 2A is a schematic diagram of electrode shapes/dispositions according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2B is an example of corresponding connecting wires.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of electrode shape/configuration in another embodiment according to the present invention.

Description of main component symbols

100: Sensing area

E1~E5: Rhombus electrodes

11, 12, 13: connection line

200: sensing area

210: First Frontier

220: Second Boundary

21, 22, 32: electrode columns

21A~21D, 22A~22D, 32A~32E: electrodes

L1A, L1B, L1C, L1D, L2A, L2B, L2C, L2D: Connection cable

Detailed ways

An embodiment according to the present invention is a touch panel, wherein the electrode shape/disposition is as shown in FIG. 2A . Multiple rows of electrodes on the same plane constitute the sensing region 200 . Each column of electrodes in this embodiment includes two parallelogram electrodes and two right triangle electrodes respectively. Taking the first row of electrodes 21 at the top of the screen as an example, it includes a right triangle electrode 21A, a parallelogram electrode 21B, a parallelogram electrode 21C, and a right triangle electrode 21D from left to right.

It can be seen from FIG. 2A that the sensing region 200 has a first boundary 210 and a second boundary 220 that are substantially perpendicular to each other. The parallelogram electrodes 21B, 21C each have two sides parallel to the first boundary 210 , and the other two sides of the parallelogram electrodes 21B, 21C are not parallel to the first boundary 210 nor parallel to the second boundary 220 . The hypotenuse of the right triangle electrode 21A is parallel to one side of the parallelogram electrode 21B. The hypotenuse of the right triangle electrode 21D is parallel to one side of the parallelogram electrode 21C.

The electrodes 21A-21D and 22A-22D in FIG. 2A are redrawn in FIG. 2B below to present a wiring example suitable for the touch panel. As shown in FIG. 2B , the connecting wires used to connect the eight electrodes to the corresponding sensors hardly need to pass through the electrode gap, so that the number of connecting wires crossing the electrode gap can be optimized. The connection lines (connection lines L1A, L1D, L2A, L2D) corresponding to the electrodes (such as electrodes 21A, 21D, 22A, 22D) adjacent to the first boundary 210 of the sensing area 200 can go to the left or right side of the sensing area 200 respectively. extend. The parallelogram electrodes (such as electrodes 21B, 21C, 22B, and 22C) located in the center of the sensing region 200 each have a sharp corner adjacent to the left or right border 210 of the sensing region 200 . As shown in FIG. 2B , connecting line L1B extends leftward from the upper left corner of electrode 21B, connecting line L1C extends rightward from the lower right corner of electrode 21C, connecting line L2B extends leftward from the upper left corner of electrode 22B, and connecting line L2C extends from electrode 22B. The lower right corner of 22C extends to the right. The wiring method shown in FIG. 2B can be applied to each row of electrodes in FIG. 2A .

The above-mentioned electrode shape/configuration and its wiring method can obviously avoid connecting wires passing through the electrode gap, and optimize the number of connecting wires passing through the electrode gap, thus solving the problem of low induction resolution and high production cost caused by the connecting wire configuration in the prior art problem, and the problem of misjudging the location of the touch.

The electrode shape/configuration in another embodiment according to the present invention is shown in FIG. 3 . The main difference between this embodiment and the previous embodiment is that the number of parallelogram electrodes in each row of electrodes is more than two. Taking the second row of electrodes 32 from above as an example, the connection lines corresponding to the right-angled triangle electrodes 32A and 32E can respectively extend to the left or right of the sensing area 200 . The connection line corresponding to the parallelogram electrode 32B can extend leftward from the upper left corner of the parallelogram electrode 32B; the connection line corresponding to the parallelogram electrode 32D can extend rightward from the lower right corner of the parallelogram electrode 32D. Only the connection line of the central parallelogram electrode 32C needs to pass through the electrode gap and extend to the left or right. Compared with the prior art (all electrodes that are not directly adjacent to the edge of the sensing area need to pass through the connection lines between the electrode gaps), the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 can considerably reduce the wiring complexity and reduce the electrode gap.

It can be seen from the embodiment in FIG. 3 that the number of parallelogram electrodes in each row of electrodes is not limited to two (in practice, it can also be one). The designer of the touch panel can decide the number of electrodes in each row of electrodes according to the size of the panel or the total number of sensors (which is closely related to the hardware cost). The advantage of having each column of electrodes consist of only two parallelogram bright electrodes is that each electrode has at least one corner fairly close to the border of the sensing area. In addition, the height of each row of electrodes is not limited to what is shown in the figure.

It is worth noting that the electrode shape/configuration proposed by the present invention can be applied not only to the self-capacitive touch panel, but also to the mutual-capacitive touch panel.

When the application environment is a self-capacitive touch panel, in addition to electrodes and connecting wires, the self-capacitive touch panel may further include N sensors and a controller. N is a positive integer greater than 1, that is, the total number of electrodes in the sensing area. For the embodiment shown in FIG. 2A, N is equal to 40. Each sensor corresponds to and is connected to an electrode, and is used for detecting the capacitance variation produced by the electrode. The controller calculates where a touch occurred based on the following equation:

$\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; x</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\frac{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; (</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; *</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; x</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; )</span>}{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; ,</span>$

$\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; the\; y</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\frac{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; (</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; *</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; Y</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; )</span>}{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; ,</span>$

Among them, x represents the coordinate of the touch occurrence position in a first direction (for example, the horizontal direction X), y represents the coordinate of the touch occurrence position in a second direction (for example, the vertical direction Y), and i ranges from 1 to An integer index between N, C _i represents the capacitance change measured by the i-th sensor, Xi _i represents the coordinates of the center of gravity of the electrode connected to the i-th sensor in the first direction, and Y _i represents the i-th The coordinates of the center of gravity of the electrode connected to the sensor in the second direction.

In the case where the application environment is a mutual capacitive touch panel, each electrode in the touch panel according to the present invention can be switched as a driving electrode in turn. Taking the electrode shape/configuration shown in FIG. 2A as an example, when the electrode 21A is set as the driving electrode, the electrodes 21B and 22B having adjacent parallel sides to the electrode 21A can be set as the receiving electrodes. Subsequently, when the electrode 21B is set as the driving electrode, the electrodes 21A, 21C, 22C having adjacent parallel sides with the electrode 21B are set as the receiving electrodes. Its positioning principle is similar to that of the known rhombic electrode mutual capacitance touch panel.

As mentioned above, the present invention proposes a new electrode shape/configuration applied to the touch panel. By adopting a properly configured parallelogram electrode, the situation of connecting wires crossing the electrode gap can be completely avoided or greatly reduced to optimize multiple The number of connecting wires passing through the plurality of gaps can solve the problems of low sensing resolution, high production cost and misjudgment of the position of the touch in the prior art caused by the configuration of the connecting wires.

Through the above detailed description of the preferred embodiments, it is hoped that the features and spirit of the present invention can be described more clearly, rather than limiting the scope of the present invention by the preferred embodiments disclosed above. On the contrary, the intention is to cover various changes and equivalent arrangements within the scope of the claimed patent scope of the present invention.

Claims (14)

1. A touch panel, comprising: A plurality of electrodes constitute a sensing region and are located on the same plane. The sensing region has a first boundary and a second boundary perpendicular to each other. The plurality of electrodes include: A parallelogram electrode has two first sides parallel to the first boundary and two second sides non-parallel to the first boundary and the second boundary. 2. The touch panel according to claim 1, wherein the electrodes further comprise: The right triangle electrode has a hypotenuse and a right angle side, the hypotenuse is parallel to the two second sides of the parallelogram electrode, and the first right angle side is parallel to the second boundary. 3 . The touch panel according to claim 2 , wherein each row of electrodes in the plurality of electrodes comprises a parallelogram electrode and two right-angled triangle electrodes. 4 . 4 . The touch panel according to claim 2 , wherein each row of electrodes in the plurality of electrodes comprises two parallelogram electrodes and two right triangle electrodes. 5. The touch panel according to claim 1, further comprising N sensors and a controller, N is a positive integer greater than 1, and the N sensors are used to detect the output generated by the plurality of electrodes. The amount of capacitance change, the controller calculates the location of a touch according to the following equation: $\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; x</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\frac{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; (</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; *</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; x</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; )</span>}{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; ,</span>$ $\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; the\; y</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\frac{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; (</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; *</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; Y</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; )</span>}{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; ,</span>$ Wherein x represents the coordinate of the touch location in a first direction, y represents the coordinate of the touch location in a second direction, i is an integer index ranging from 1 to N, C _i represents the first The amount of capacitance change measured by the i sensor, Xi _i represents the coordinates of the center of gravity of the electrode connected to the i sensor in the first direction, and Y _i represents the electrode connected to the i sensor in the second direction The coordinates of the center of gravity in the direction. 6. The touch panel according to claim 1, wherein the positioning method is self-capacitance or mutual-capacity. 7. The touch panel according to claim 1, further comprising a plurality of sensors and a controller, each of the plurality of electrodes is a driving electrode at a time point, and a plurality of electrodes adjacent to it are There are multiple receiving electrodes, and the multiple sensors are used to detect the variation of mutual capacitance generated by the multiple receiving electrodes. 8. A touch panel, comprising: Multiple sensors; a plurality of connecting wires, one end of each connecting wire is connected to one of the plurality of sensors; A plurality of electrodes connected to the plurality of connection lines, the plurality of electrodes constitute a sensing area and are located on the same plane, the sensing area has a first boundary and a second boundary perpendicular to each other, and a plurality of gap, the plurality of electrodes comprising: a parallelogram electrode having two first sides parallel to the first boundary and two second sides not parallel to the first boundary and the second boundary, Wherein the disposition of the plurality of electrodes optimizes a quantity of a part of the plurality of connection lines passing through the plurality of gaps. 9. The touch panel according to claim 8, wherein the plurality of electrodes further comprise: The right triangle electrode has a hypotenuse and a right angle side, the hypotenuse is parallel to the two second sides of the parallelogram electrode, and the first right angle side is parallel to the second boundary. 10 . The touch panel according to claim 9 , wherein each row of electrodes in the plurality of electrodes comprises a parallelogram electrode and two right-angled triangle electrodes. 11 . 11 . The touch panel according to claim 9 , wherein each row of electrodes in the plurality of electrodes comprises two parallelogram electrodes and two right triangle electrodes. 12. The touch panel according to claim 8, wherein the number of the plurality of sensors is N, and N is a positive integer greater than 1, and the N sensors are used to detect the voltage generated by the plurality of electrodes. The amount of capacitance change, the controller calculates the location of a touch according to the following equation: $\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; x</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\frac{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; (</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; *</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; x</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; )</span>}{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; ,</span>$ $\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; the\; y</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\frac{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; (</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; *</span>{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; Y</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; )</span>}{\underset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}<span\; class="notranslate">\; =</span>\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; 1</span>}}{\overset{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; N</span>}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; \&Sigma;</span>}}}{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; C</span>}}_{\mathrm{<span\; class="notranslate">\; i</span>}}}<span\; class="notranslate">\; ,</span>$ Wherein x represents the coordinate of the touch location in a first direction, y represents the coordinate of the touch location in a second direction, i is an integer index ranging from 1 to N, C _i represents the first The amount of capacitance change measured by the i sensor, Xi _i represents the coordinates of the center of gravity of the electrode connected to the i sensor in the first direction, and Y _i represents the electrode connected to the i sensor in the second direction The coordinates of the center of gravity in the direction. 13. The touch panel according to claim 8, wherein the positioning method is self-capacitance or mutual-capacity. 14. The touch panel according to claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of electrodes is a driving electrode at a time point, and the plurality of electrodes adjacent to it are a plurality of receiving electrodes, and the plurality of sensors are used for To detect the variation of mutual capacitance generated by the plurality of receiving electrodes.

Images