JP2006153684A - Display panel - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a display panel of nice-looking while the following cases are spoiled in the nice looking because of the differences of hue and texture between the background color of black ink in fixed display region covered with a light shielding black ink and the background color of variable display region for positive display are too conspicuous, or the case the boundary between the fixed display region and the variable display region becomes too conspicuous by the step made by thickness of the break line. <P>SOLUTION: The display panel 3 is composed of fixed display region 6 and a display element 12 provided with a variable display region 8, a plate member 14 provided on the surface side of the fixed display element 12 , and a fixed design part 7 transparently illuminated by the display element 12. The light shield layer 13 is provided with an opening 26 opposite to the fixed design part 7 provided on the other surface of the counter display surface of the plate member 14. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to, for example, a display panel that is incorporated in a vehicle display device and includes a fixed display area and a variable display area.

Conventionally, a display panel disclosed in Patent Document 1 is known. The display panel includes a display element, a display panel (hereinafter referred to as a dial), and a parting member. The display element has a fixed display area for displaying fixed information (fixed design) such as a scale and a number indicated by the pointer and a warning indicating the driving state of the vehicle, and variable information (variable design) such as a travel distance in Japanese characters. And a variable display area displayed by a mold segment. The fixed display area and the variable display area are partitioned by a dial and a parting member. On the dial plate, a fixed design such as a scale is printed with a transparent ink in a fixed display region, a mask is printed with a light-shielding black ink except for the fixed design, and is transmitted and illuminated by a display element. Since the display panel as described above is composed of a single display panel, there is an effect that the brightness adjustment work and design can be facilitated as compared with a display panel provided with a light emitting element and a display panel in each display region.
JP 2003-240661 A

  In recent years, in display panels, in addition to an increase in the amount of information to be displayed in a limited space and diversification of display methods, there is a demand for good design and good appearance. Since the fixed display area and the variable display area are divided by the parting member, the boundary between the fixed display area and the variable display area is noticeable due to a step due to the thickness of the parting member, and the appearance is deteriorated. There is a fear.

  On the other hand, it is conceivable to perform blackout mask printing using black ink instead of the parting member, but the boundary with the fixed display area is conspicuous due to a step difference due to printing, or fixed display covered with light-shielding black ink A difference in color tone and texture between the background color of the black ink in the region and the background color of the variable display region to be positively displayed may stand out, and the appearance may be impaired.

  In view of such a problem, an object of the present invention is to provide a display panel having a good appearance.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a display element having a fixed display area and a variable display area, a light shielding layer provided in the fixed display area, a plate material provided on the display surface side of the display element, A display panel having a fixed design portion that is transmitted and illuminated by the display element, wherein the light shielding layer includes an opening that is provided on a side opposite to the display surface of the plate material and faces the fixed design portion. And

  Further, in the present invention, as described in claim 2, the fixed design portion is provided on a display surface side of the plate material, and the light shielding layer is formed smaller than an outline of the fixed design portion. And a superposed portion that overlaps the fixed design portion, and a non-polymerized portion that does not overlap the fixed design portion.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, the plate material includes the fixed design portion on a display surface and the light-shielding layer on a non-display surface.

  Moreover, this invention is characterized by the said board | plate material being a permeation | transmission suppression member, as described in Claim 4.

  The present invention can provide a display panel with good appearance.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of a display device to which a display element according to the present invention is applied will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  1 to 7 are front views showing a first embodiment of a display device to which a display panel according to the present invention is applied. FIG. 1 is a front view of a display device to which the display panel of this embodiment is applied, FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the display panel, and FIG. 3 is a front view of the display panel. 4 is a display surface view of a polarizing plate (plate material), FIG. 5 is a reverse display surface view of the polarizing plate, FIG. 6 is a front view and a cross-sectional view of the main part of the display panel, and FIG. It is a reference figure which shows parallax.

  The display device 1 includes a pointer 2, a display panel 3, a circuit board 4, and a facing plate 5, and as shown in FIG. 1, an index indicating the vehicle speed indicated by the pointer 2 in the fixed display area 6. The number and unit (fixed design part) 7 are displayed, and vehicle information (variable design part) 9 such as time and travel distance is displayed in the variable display area 8 provided below the display area where the pointer 2 does not rotate. .

  The pointer 2 includes an instruction unit 10 and a pointer cap 11 that covers the center of rotation of the pointer 2. The instruction unit 10 is made of a transparent synthetic resin and made of a light guide material that guides light, and is illuminated by the display panel 3 described in detail later. The pointer cap 11 is made of a light-shielding synthetic resin material.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the display panel 3 includes an organic EL element (display element) 12, a light shielding layer 13, a circularly polarizing plate (plate material) 14, and a fixed design portion 7. The organic EL element 12 includes a support member 15, an organic EL element layer 16, a sealing member 17, a through hole 18 (FIG. 3), a fixed display area 6, and a variable display area 8. In the region 6, the fixed design portion 7 is transmitted and illuminated, and in the variable display region 8, positive display is performed in which the variable design portion 9 emits light.

  The support member 15 is a substantially rectangular flat plate member made of glass, translucent resin, or the like, and supports the organic EL element layer 16.

  The organic EL element layer 16 constitutes the fixed display area 6 by the segments and the variable display area 8 by the dot matrix. A transparent electrode 19 that is an anode using ITO (indium tin oxide) that is a translucent material, an electrically insulating insulating layer 20 made of a polyimide-based or phenol-based photosensitive resin material, and a dot matrix are used for display. An electrically insulating partition wall 21 made of a photosensitive resin material such as a phenol-based resin used in the organic EL element layer 16 in the variable display region 8, and an organic film made up of a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, a light emitting layer, and an electron transport layer. The layer 22 and the back electrode 23 which is a cathode using a non-translucent material such as aluminum (Al) are sequentially laminated by vapor deposition or the like.

  The sealing member 17 is, for example, a flat plate member made of a glass material that is slightly smaller than the support member 15 and formed in a concave shape, and the space portion S that houses the organic EL element layer 16 between the bottom portion and the side portion is formed with the support member 15. Consists of. The sealing member 17 is formed with a columnar protruding portion (not shown) that protrudes from the center of the bottom portion and becomes the peripheral wall of the through hole 18, and the height of the protruding portion is set to be equal to the side portion. The sealing member 17 is applied to the bottom so that a moisture absorbent C that absorbs moisture in the space S is separated from the organic EL element layer 16 by a predetermined gap. The sealing member 17 is disposed on the support member 15 via an ultraviolet curable adhesive (not shown) applied to a joint portion with the support member 15.

  The organic EL element 12 is formed by bonding the supporting member 15 having the organic EL element layer 16 laminated and the sealing member 17, and then a through hole 18 is formed so as to hollow out the center of the protruding portion by a drill or the like. . A pointer shaft (not shown) of the pointer 2 is inserted through the through hole 18 formed in this way.

  The circularly polarizing plate 14 is a translucent member and is provided on the organic EL element 12 in order to prevent reflection of external light. The circularly polarizing plate 14 is composed of a linearly polarizing plate and a retardation plate. By tilting the angle formed by the polarization axis of the linearly polarizing plate and the optical axis of the retardation plate by ± 45 degrees, the circularly polarizing plate is right-handed or left-handed. Can be obtained. The right circular deflection is reflected to become a left circular deflection, and the left deflection is reflected to be a right circular deflection. In other words, light incident from the outside (external incident light) passes through the circularly polarizing plate 14 and becomes right-turning or left-turning circular deflection. It proceeds toward the outside of the EL element 12. Since the external incident light reflected by the back electrode 23 is circularly polarized light in the direction opposite to the incident light, the circularly polarizing plate 14 blocks the propagation to the outside of the organic EL element 12 without transmitting the reflected light. Therefore, reflection of external light due to reflection is prevented.

  As shown in FIG. 4, the circularly polarizing plate 14 includes a fixed design portion 7 on the display surface, and includes a light shielding layer 13 on the opposite surface of the display surface as illustrated in FIG. The circularly polarizing plate 14 is a transmission suppressing member, is not colorless and transparent, and is visually recognized as gray by polarized light. By providing the light shielding layer 13 on the opposite display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14 having a low transmittance, the boundary E between the fixed display region 6 and the variable display region 8 can be made indistinct and inconspicuous. And the variable display area 8 are produced, and the appearance of the display panel 3 is improved. In addition, you may use the color film etc. which were colored gray as the board | plate material 14 replaced with the circularly-polarizing plate 14. FIG.

  The fixed design portion 7 is printed with white translucent ink on the display surface side of the circularly polarizing plate 14 in the fixed display area 6 indicated by the pointer, with numbers indicating the speed of the vehicle and its unit (fixed design portion) 7. Is done. The arrangement position of the fixed design portion 7 is the display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14 and is not the opposite display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14 as the light shielding layer 13 is because the circularly polarizing plate 14 is not colorless and transparent, but gray. Therefore, when the fixed design portion 7 formed by printing with the white translucent ink is provided on the opposite surface of the display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14, the fixed design portion 7 becomes a grayish circularly polarizing plate. It is because it is visually recognized through 14 and is not visually recognized in a desired white color. Therefore, by providing the fixed design portion 7 on the display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14, the display color of the fixed design portion 7 is not affected by the color of the circularly polarizing plate 14 itself (in the case of a color such as gray), and the fixed design portion 7 The display color of part 7 can be produced.

  The fixed design portion 7 is displayed by reflecting external light when the surrounding is bright, and is displayed by being transmitted and illuminated by the light emitted from the organic EL element 12 when the surrounding is dark. This is because if the fixed design portion 7 is displayed only by light from the organic EL element 12 in the daytime when the outside light is bright, the luminance of the organic EL element 12 must be increased, leading to an increase in electrical resistance. Therefore, the display method is adopted.

  As shown in FIG. 4, the light-shielding layer 13 is provided by screen-printing light-shielding black ink on the surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14 facing the display panel 3 in the fixed display area 6 excluding the variable display area 8. It is done. Since the light shielding layer 13 is visually recognized through the gray-colored circularly polarizing plate 14, the boundary E between the fixed display area 6 where the light shielding layer 13 is printed and the variable display area 8 where the light shielding layer 13 is not formed becomes inconspicuous. A sense of unity between regions 6 and 8 is produced. As a method for making the boundary E more inconspicuous, it can be considered that gradation printing is performed on a portion corresponding to the boundary E of the light shielding layer 13 (a portion surrounding the variable display region 8).

  As shown in FIGS. 2 and 6, the light shielding layer 13 includes a superposed portion 24 that overlaps the fixed design portion 7, a non-polymerized portion 25 that does not overlap the fixed design portion 7, and the contour of the fixed design portion 7 that faces the light-shielding layer 13. And an opening 26 formed to be slightly smaller. That is, the opening 26 has a shape approximately similar to the outline of the corresponding fixed design portion 7, and when viewed from the display surface side, the opening 26 of the light shielding layer 13 has the shape of the fixed design portion 7. It is formed inside.

  Thus, the reason why the overlapping portion 24 that overlaps with the fixed design portion 7 is provided in the light shielding layer 13 is that, as shown in FIG. When the light emitted from the organic EL element 12 passes through the opening 27 that is a light extraction port and illuminates the fixed design portion 7, the fixed design is displayed when the user U visually recognizes the display panel 3 from an oblique direction. This is because the opening portion 27 shining behind the portion 7 is visually recognized, and an unnatural feeling is received. This is called parallax, and this distance is the distance between the fixed design portion 7 and the opening 27 and is determined by the thickness (stacking depth) W of the circularly polarizing plate 14 in this embodiment. .

  Therefore, in the present embodiment, by providing the light shielding layer 13 with the overlapping portion 24 that overlaps with the fixed design portion 7, as shown in FIG. The part 24) blocks the user U's line of sight so that the opening 7 cannot be seen directly. Then, the parallax is eliminated, the unnatural feeling is eliminated, and the appearance is improved. Since the overlapping width W (width of the overlapping portion 24) W between the light shielding layer 13 and the opening 7 is proportional to the stacking depth (distance between the fixed design portion 7 and the opening 27) D, the stacking depth D is The overlapping width W is set smaller as the depth is shallower, and the overlapping width W is set larger as the stacking depth D is deeper. In order to efficiently transmit and illuminate the fixed design portion 7 using the light emitted from the organic EL element 12 as much as possible, it is desirable that the opening 27 is as large as possible. The formation location of the light shielding layer 13 is set so that the length W becomes shallow. For example, when another plate material is interposed between the circularly polarizing plate 14 and the organic EL element 12, the light is shielded on the opposite display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14 having the fixed design portion 7 on the display surface as in the present embodiment. It is effective to provide the layer 13 (opening 7).

  The circuit board 4 is a hard board made of glass epoxy resin. The circuit board 4 has a driving body (not shown) of the pointer 2 fixed to the lower side thereof. The circuit board 4 is electrically connected to the organic EL element 12 by a flexible connecting member (FPC) or the like.

  The facing plate 5 is made of a light-shielding synthetic resin and includes a window portion 27 for exposing the display areas 6 and 8 of the organic EL element 12. The facing plate 5 has a scale 28 corresponding to a numerical index indicating the speed of the vehicle displayed on the organic EL element 12 so as to surround the window portion 27. The scale is provided by notching the facing plate 5 and making a slit, and is illuminated by the transmission of light emitted from the organic EL element 12.

  Accordingly, the display device 1 produces a sense of unity between the fixed display area 6 and the variable display area 8 and improves the appearance. In addition, the appearance is further improved by providing the overlapping portion 24 in the light shielding layer 13 to eliminate parallax. In addition, by providing the light shielding layer 13 (opening 7) on the non-display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14 having the fixed design portion 7 on the display surface, the light emitted from the organic EL element 12 can be efficiently fixed using the maximum amount. The design portion 7 is transmitted and illuminated. In addition, the use of the circularly polarizing plate 14 that prevents the reflection of external light required for the display device without using a dedicated member for the plate member 14 contributes to the reduction of the number of parts and the thinning of the display panel 3. ing.

  In the present embodiment, the fixed display area 6 transmits and illuminates the fixed design portion 7 with the segmented organic EL elements 12, but a surface emitting organic EL element 12 may be used. Also in the variable display area 8, segment display may be used instead of dot matrix display.

  In this embodiment, the fixed design portion 7 is provided on the display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14. However, in the present invention according to claim 1, the fixed design portion 7 and the light shielding layer 13 are displayed on the display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14. It may be provided on the opposite surface.

  Further, although the organic EL element 12 is used as the display element 12, a liquid crystal or a fluorescent display tube may be used.

  In this embodiment, the light shielding layer 13 is printed on the surface opposite to the display surface of the circularly polarizing plate 14, but may be formed on the display surface of the display panel 3 (support plate 15).

  Further, in this embodiment, the circularly polarizing plate 14 is used as the plate member 14, but an optical member used for color adjustment, color conversion, and luminance adjustment is arbitrary.

  Further, in the present embodiment, only the circularly polarizing plate 14 is used as the plate material 14, but a plurality of plate materials may be provided on the organic EL element 12, and when the plurality of plate materials 14 are provided, the stacking depth D is set. The fixed design portion 7 can be efficiently transmitted and illuminated by providing the light shielding layer 13 on the opposite side of the plate 14 provided with the fixed design portion 7 in order to make it shallow and enlarge the opening 26.

The front view which shows 1st embodiment of this invention. Sectional drawing of the display panel which shows embodiment same as the above. The front view of the organic EL element which shows embodiment same as the above. The display surface figure of the polarizing plate of embodiment same as the above. The non-display surface view of the polarizing plate of embodiment same as the above. The principal part front view and sectional drawing of the display panel of embodiment same as the above. Reference diagram showing parallax.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Display apparatus 2 Pointer 3 Display panel 6 Fixed display area 7 Fixed design part 8 Variable display area 9 Variable design part 12 Organic EL element (display element)
13 light shielding layer 14 circularly polarizing plate (plate material)
24 superposed part 25 non-superimposed part 26 opening D stacking depth W overlap width

Claims (4)

A display element having a fixed display area and a variable display area;
A light shielding layer provided in the fixed display area;
A plate provided on the display surface side of the display element;
A fixed design portion that is transmitted and illuminated by the display element;
A display panel comprising:
The display panel, wherein the light shielding layer includes an opening provided on the side opposite to the display surface of the plate material and facing the fixed design portion. The fixed design portion is provided on the display surface side of the plate material,
The light shielding layer includes the opening formed smaller than the contour of the fixed design portion, a superposed portion that overlaps the fixed design portion, and a non-polymerized portion that does not overlap the fixed design portion. The display panel according to claim 1. The display panel according to claim 1, wherein the plate member includes the fixed design portion on a display surface and the light shielding layer on a non-display surface. The display panel according to claim 1, wherein the plate member is a transmission suppressing member.

Images