KR100584976B1 - STATE IMAGE MODUlE HAVING INTEGRATED LED FOR PORTABLE COMMUNICATION APPARATUS - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed is an imaging device module for a portable terminal in which an LED is integrated. The disclosed invention includes a housing in which a space portion is formed; An imaging lens mounted on an upper portion of the housing and configured to focus an image of a subject; A printed circuit board (PCB) supporting the housing and mounted with an image sensor for photographing a subject on a central upper surface thereof; At least one LED positioned on a PCB outside the housing and provided to emit light to a subject; It is configured to include an optical fiber provided on the LED so as to irradiate light emitted from the LED only in front, characterized in that the LED is an image pickup device module for a portable terminal.

LED, imaging device, housing, optical fiber, portable terminal

Description

IMAGE MODULE HAVING INTEGRATED LED FOR PORTABLE COMMUNICATION APPARATUS}

1 is a perspective view of a portable terminal with a conventional camera,

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of an image pickup device module and an LED of the portable terminal with a camera shown in FIG. 1;

3 is a perspective view of a portable terminal in which a camera rotates by rotating a conventional camera hinge portion,

4 is a cross-sectional view of an imaging device module for a portable terminal incorporating an LED according to the present invention;

Figure 5 shows another embodiment of the housing of the imaging device module according to the present invention,

6 is a view in which the SMD LED is applied to the present invention,

7 is a sectional view of an optical fiber provided on an LED according to the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating the present invention applied to a portable terminal in which a camera rotates by rotating a camera hinge.

9 is a view showing that the PDA is applied to the present invention.

* Description of Symbols for Major Parts of Drawings *

1: handheld terminal 2,32,232: camera

10,110: imaging device module 11,111: housing

12,112: space part 13,113: imaging lens

14,114: image sensor 15,23,115: PCB

16,116: FPC 17: Connector for image pickup device module

20,32,120,233: LED 21: negative lead

22: anode lead 24: connection wire

25: LED connector 30, 230: Mobile terminal with camera hinge

31,231: Camera hinge 117: Connector

118: Iris filter 119: lens holder

121,122: anode lead, anode lead 130: optical fiber

131,132: one end and the other end 133: flexible conduit

120`: SMD LED

The present invention relates to an image pickup device module for a portable terminal in which an LED is integrated. More particularly, the present invention relates to an imaging device module for a portable terminal in which an LED is integrated to solve the spatial constraints caused when a light emitting diode (LED) that emits light to a subject is dually provided with the imaging device module.

As a medium for transmitting video information, portable terminals such as mobile phones or PDAs with cameras have been developed and are being widely used. Herein, the camera mounted on the portable terminal has a built-in image pickup device module including an image sensor that receives light from an external light source and recognizes the image as an image.

In addition, in order to satisfy various needs of consumers, for example, the macro function of the lens that can change the lens focus manually and take a short distance or the digital zoom function that can enlarge a specific part of the image are becoming important functions.

In addition, the flash function that allows shooting in the dark or at night is a function that is already common in analog and digital cameras, and it is essential to mount it even in the case of a portable terminal with a camera.

Therefore, a portable terminal capable of transmitting information such as a moving picture by performing a camera function in addition to the original communication function is essentially required for an image pickup device module for recognizing an image and an LED emitting light to a subject.

1 is a perspective view of a conventional portable terminal equipped with a camera capable of performing a flash function by mounting an image pickup device module and LEDs. FIGS. 2 (a) and 2 (b) show the image pickup device module and the LED of FIG. It is a cross section of.

Referring to FIG. 1, a portable terminal 1 equipped with a conventional camera includes a camera 2 having an imaging device module 10 for capturing an image, and an LED for irradiating light to serve as a flash during night photography. 20 are mounted, respectively.

Here, the imaging device module 10 embedded in the camera 2 includes a housing 11 having a space portion 12 formed at the center thereof, as shown in FIG. An imaging lens 13 mounted on an upper portion of the housing 11 for focusing an image; It consists of a printed circuit board (PCB) 15 supporting the housing 11 and mounted with an image sensor 14 on a central upper surface thereof, and is connected to an image sensor module connector 17 through an FPC 16. The connector 17 is connected to the motherboard of the portable terminal, not shown. On the other hand, the image sensor 14 is typically mounted on the PCB 15 through die bonding and wire bonding (wire bonding).

In addition, the LED 20 is a diode that emits excess energy as light when electrons or holes injected by using the pn junction structure of the semiconductor are recombined. It is showing great merits, and as high-luminance products are produced, it also plays a role of lighting fixture.

As shown in FIG. 2 (b), the LED 20 includes a chip (not shown) that emits light when a current is applied, and a surface of the LED 20 is made of a conductive metal material for applying a current to the chip. The cathode lead 21 and the anode lead 22 are provided. The cathode lead 21 and the anode lead 22 are electrically fixed on the PCB 23 by soldering lights, and the LED 20 is connected to the LED connector 25 through the connection wire 24. On the other hand, the LED connector 25 is also connected to the motherboard of the portable terminal (1).

In this way, an electrical signal is applied to the PCB 15 on which the image sensor 14 is mounted on the motherboard of the mobile terminal 1 via the image pickup device module connector 17 and the FPC 16. In response to the signal, the image sensor 14 recognizes an image of the subject.

In addition, when a flash such as night photography is required, a flash signal through the LED connector 25 and the connection wire 24 is applied from the motherboard of the portable terminal to the PCB 23, and the LED 20 is applied by the applied signal. ) Emits light toward the front. The subject emitted by the LED 20 can be picked up at night through the image pickup device module 10.

However, the portable terminal 1 with the conventional camera configured as described above is a medium for transmitting electrical signals to the image pickup device module 10 and the LED 20, and the image pickup device module connector 17 and the LED connector. (25) were each required separately. Therefore, due to the space occupied by the imaging device module connector 17 and the LED connector 25, it is difficult to arrange two connectors inside the portable terminal.

In addition, the portable terminal has a problem in that the volume of the portable terminal is increased because it has to accommodate two connectors, the problem of an increase in the manufacturing cost of each connector is required inevitably caused.

3 illustrates a portable terminal 30 in which a main body is folded in half, and a camera is attached to the camera hinge portion 31 so that the camera 32 rotates by rotating the camera hinge portion 31. Partially illustrated. For reference, since the portable terminal 30 to which the camera 31 rotates can photograph the camera 32 in the direction of the subject only by the rotation of the camera hinge 31, the portable terminal 30 itself can be directed toward the subject. It has the advantage of not having to move.

Here, in the case of the mobile terminal 30 as shown and described above, since the image pickup device module connector and the LED connector are separately required and restricted in space, the camera hinge portion 31 picks up an image to capture an image. Only the camera 32 including the device module is mounted, and the LED 33 emitting light to the subject has to be mounted on a portion other than the camera hinge 31 (folding hinge in FIG. 3). Therefore, when the camera hinge portion 31 is rotated automatically or manually according to the position of the subject, the camera 32 having the imaging device module mounted on the camera hinge portion 31 may be rotated by the camera hinge portion 31. Although it could be rotated integrally to capture the subject, the LED 33 cannot be mounted on the camera hinge portion 31, so that the LED 33 is fixed regardless of the rotation of the camera hinge portion 31 on which the image pickup device module is mounted. Bar, there is a problem that the direction of the LED 33 can not match the direction of the camera (that is, the direction of the position of the subject). After all, in the case of night photography in which the subject is photographed by the flash of the LED 33, the camera hinge 31 has to be rotated in the direction of the subject after the LED 33 is directed in the direction of the subject. There was a problem in that it could not enjoy the technical benefits of the device that the subject can be easily photographed by only rotating the hinge part 31.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to mount an LED that emits light to a subject on a PCB mounted with an image sensor and the electrical signal is applied from the connector for the image pickup device By omitting the LED connector, it is to provide an imaging device module for a portable terminal in which the LED is integrated to solve the spatial constraints caused when the LED emitting light to a subject is provided in dual with the imaging device module.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a housing including a space part; An imaging lens mounted on an upper portion of the housing and configured to focus an image of a subject; A printed circuit board (PCB) supporting the housing and mounted with an image sensor for photographing a subject on a central upper surface thereof; It is achieved by providing an integrated image pickup device module, characterized in that the LED is located on the PCB outside the housing and comprises at least one LED provided to emit light to the subject.

Here, the optical fiber is preferably provided on the LED to irradiate only the light emitted from the LED to the front.

The above object and various advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the preferred embodiments of the present invention described below with reference to the accompanying drawings by those skilled in the art.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

4 is a cross-sectional view of an image pickup device module for a portable terminal incorporating an LED according to the present invention.

Referring to this, the imaging device module 110 for a portable terminal in which the LED is integrated according to the present invention is largely equipped with a PCB 115 and an LED 120 on which a housing 111, an imaging lens 113, and an image sensor 114 are mounted. It characterized in that it is configured to include.

An imaging lens 113 for focusing an image of a subject is mounted on an upper end of the housing 111, and a space 112 is formed therein. The space 112 serves as a path through which the image focused by the imaging lens 113 can reach the image sensor 114. On the other hand, the lower end of the housing 111 is fixed on the PCB 115 through an adhesive such as epoxy resin.

In addition, an IR filter 118, also called an aperture, may be provided in the space 112 of the housing to adjust the amount of image light focused from the imaging lens 113. The iris filter 118 is fixed to a predetermined position in the housing through an adhesive such as an epoxy resin.

Also preferably, the imaging lens 113 may be mounted through the lens holder 119 as shown in FIG. 5 without being directly mounted to the housing 111. That is, the lens holder 119 may be provided at the upper end of the housing 111 to mount the imaging lens 113 more firmly, and the imaging lens 113 may be mounted to the lens holder 119.

Meanwhile, the image sensor 114 that recognizes the image captured by the imaging lens 113 is connected by die bonding and wire bonding to the upper surface of the PCB 115. In addition, the PCB 115 is connected to the connector 117 through a flexible printed circuit board (FPC) 116, and the connector 117 is connected to a motherboard of a mobile terminal (not shown).

On the other hand, the LED 120 is integrated on the imaging device module 110 is mounted on the PCB (115). Here, the LED according to the invention can be applied to all known LED.
In the present specification, as an example, the LED illustrated in FIG. 2B is used. As described above, a chip, which is not shown, that emits light when a current is applied, is stored therein. The cathode lead 121 and the anode lead 122 made of a conductive metal material are provided. The LED 120 is electrically connected to the PCB 115 on which the cathode lead 121 and the anode lead 122 are mounted by the image sensor 114.

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The LED 120 is provided at least outside the housing 111, the number of LEDs 120 to be provided is changeable according to the distance between the subject and the LED, the degree of darkness around the subject and the required illuminance. In addition, when a plurality of LEDs are provided, it may be desirable to be provided symmetrically at equal intervals on the outside of the housing to avoid non-uniform emission of the subject.

Meanwhile, in the image pickup device module according to the present invention, as shown in FIGS. 4 and 7, an optical fiber 130 may be provided on the LED 120 so that light emitted from the LED 120 is radiated forward only.

Referring to FIG. 7, the optical fiber 130 is a fiber-shaped waveguide for the purpose of light transmission, and the structure of the optical fiber 130 wraps a cladding portion around a central core portion. It has a cylindrical shape, one end 131 is formed to be open, the other end 132 is formed to be closed. Mounting of the optical fiber 130 is made by inserting the open side end portion 131 into the LED (120).

When the optical fiber 130 is inserted into and fixed to the LED 120 as described above, the light emitted from the LED 120 is refracted inside the optical fiber 130 and transmitted forward.

On the other hand, the closed end 132 of the optical fiber 130 is refracted inward or outward, depending on the purpose of use, when the outward deflection is formed as shown by the virtual line of Figure 6 the light emitted from the LED 120 In the divergent form, the light emitted from the LED 120 becomes relatively convergent than the case in which the light is emitted from the LED 120. Therefore, in the case of the present invention, it is preferable that the closed end portion 132 of the optical fiber bend-refractively formed to enable imaging over a longer distance.

In addition, the outer side of the optical fiber 130 is preferably coated with a flexible wire tube 133 so that the optical fiber is not bent or broken by an external impact or the like. The material of the flexible wire tube 133 is preferably made of glass with good transparency, but may be a plastic optical fiber made of polycarbonate resin.

As described above, the present invention applies the characteristics of the optical fiber to irradiate light only to the present invention, and has the effect of maximizing the intensity and amount of light irradiated to the subject by minimizing light divergence.

In other words, it is possible to further minimize the divergence of light by allowing the light to be irradiated from the sealed end of the optical fiber provided at a predetermined height in the LED, not the LED.

In addition, in the conventional case, a part of the beam emitted from the LED may be incident on the imaging lens, causing problems such as color bleeding due to interference of light. However, an optical fiber having a predetermined height is provided on the LED so that the beam emitted from the LED is an optical fiber. Since the light is refracted within and irradiated from the end of the optical fiber, the effect of blocking the beam emitted from the LED from entering the imaging lens can be expected.

On the other hand, Figure 6 shows an example in which the SMD LED 120` is used in the present invention in addition to the LED 120 described above, the structure described above is the LED 120 is the cathode lead 121 and the anode The solder 122 of the lead 122 is electrically connected to the PCB 115 on which the image sensor 114 is mounted, but in this embodiment, the SMD LED 120 'is shown in FIG. Surface Mounted Therefore, it is effective for heat dissipation due to the surface mounting, and has a merit that the camera module of the mobile terminal can be made compact in that it is small.

The operation of the imaging device module for a portable terminal with integrated LED according to the present invention is as follows.

The current applied through the connector 117 is applied to the PCB 115 through the FPC 116, and the LEDs 120 and 120 'emit light by the applied current. The emitted light is refracted in the optical fiber 130 while converging to a minimum divergence range and irradiating toward the front to emit the subject. The irradiated light is reflected by the subject and focused through the imaging lens, and recognized by the image sensor as an image.

Due to this configuration, according to the present invention, it is not necessary to use the conventional LED connector 25. Therefore, since the imaging device module and the LED can be used with only one connector, a wider space can be ensured inside the camera, and the LED can be integrated into the imaging device module.

In particular, this configuration has an excellent effect in the mobile terminal 230 that the camera is rotated by the rotation of the camera hinge.

In the case of the portable terminal 30 in which the camera 32 is rotated by the rotation of the camera hinge 31 shown in FIG. 3, the LED hinge and the image pickup device connector are provided, respectively. ), Only a camera 32 having an image pickup device module for capturing an image is included, and the LED 33 for emitting light to a subject is embedded in a portion other than the camera hinge, but in the present invention, only one connector is used. Since the LED and the image sensor are mounted on a single substrate and can be miniaturized, the LED 232 can be packaged in the image pickup device module 231 at the camera hinge 231 as shown in FIG. . Therefore, when the camera hinge unit 231 is rotated, the LED 232 and the image pickup device module 231 rotate integrally thereto, so that the irradiation direction of the LED 232 and the direction of the image pickup device module 231 (that is, The positional direction of the subject) always matches so that the above-mentioned conventional problem is solved.

Such an image pickup device module integrated with the LED according to the present invention can be applied not only to a mobile phone but also to a mobile terminal such as a PDA as shown in FIG.

On the other hand, those skilled in the art will be able to make various modifications and changes of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, the image sensor according to the present invention described above is not limited to the case in which the sensor is mounted on the substrate through wire bonding, and it is obvious that the image sensor may be mounted on the substrate through a known flip chip process. In addition, an image sensor may be mounted on the FPC by forming an electrical connection pattern on the FPC, and an imaging device module may be manufactured by using a rigid-flexible PCB (RFPC) integrating the PCB and the FPC.

As described above, according to the imaging device module for a portable terminal in which the LED is integrated according to the present invention, since the LED and the imaging device module are integrated, the number of connectors embedded in the camera of the portable terminal can be reduced, thereby reducing the size and thickness of the connector. The camera of a portable terminal can be manufactured.

In addition, due to the structure of the optical fiber mounted on the LED, it is possible to minimize the divergence of the light emitted from the LED to maximize the intensity and amount of light irradiated to the subject. In addition, since the light emitted from the LED due to the optical fiber may be incident on the imaging lens, there is an effect of preventing deterioration of the camera image quality due to light interference.

In addition, especially in a mobile terminal in which the camera is rotated by the rotation of the camera hinge part, since the imaging device module and the LED integrated therein are also built in the camera hinge part, the LED is also rotated due to the rotation of the camera hinge part so that the camera hinge part is provided. There is an effect that can enjoy the technical benefits.

Claims (11)

In the imaging device module for a mobile terminal, A housing formed with a space; An imaging lens mounted on an upper portion of the housing and configured to focus an image of a subject; A printed circuit board (PCB) supporting the housing and mounted with an image sensor for photographing a subject on a central upper surface thereof; At least one LED positioned on a PCB outside the housing and provided to emit light to a subject; It is configured to include one imaging device and a connector for the LED connected to the PCB, And the LED and the scratch element module are rotated integrally as the camera hinge portion rotates. The image pickup device module of claim 1, wherein an iris filter is provided in the space of the housing to adjust the amount of image light focused from the image pickup lens. The image pickup device module of claim 1, wherein the image pickup lens is mounted to a housing through a lens holder. The image pickup device module of any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the LED is a SMD LED. In the imaging device module for a mobile terminal, A housing formed with a space; An imaging lens mounted on an upper portion of the housing and configured to focus an image of a subject; A printed circuit board (PCB) supporting the housing and mounted with an image sensor for photographing a subject on a central upper surface thereof; At least one LED positioned on a PCB outside the housing and provided to emit light to a subject; An optical fiber provided on the LED to irradiate light emitted from the LED only in front; It is configured to include one imaging device and a connector for the LED connected to the PCB, And the LED and the scratch element module are rotated integrally as the camera hinge portion rotates. 6. The imaging device module as claimed in claim 5, wherein an iris filter is provided in the space of the housing to adjust the amount of image light focused from the imaging lens. The image pickup device module of claim 5, wherein the image pickup lens is mounted to a housing through a lens holder. The optical fiber of claim 5, wherein the optical fiber has a cylindrical shape in which a cladding portion is wrapped around a central core portion, and one end portion is formed to be open, and the other end portion is open. It is formed to be sealed, the one side end formed to be opened is inserted into the LED 120 is provided on the LED, characterized in that the LED integrated module. The ED module of claim 8, wherein a flexible wire tube is coated on the outside of the optical fiber such that the optical fiber is not bent or broken by an external impact or the like. 10. The image pickup device module of claim 8, wherein the other end of the optical fiber is bent inwardly. The image pickup device module of claim 5, wherein the LED is a SMD LED.

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