KR102043987B1 - Touch sensor comprising atypical sensor pattern - Google Patents

Abstract

The embodiments include a sensor pattern including a plurality of first sensor lines and a plurality of second sensor lines, wherein the sensor pattern includes a plurality of unit cells in which a virtual first reference line and a virtual second reference line overlap. As it is formed based on the virtual reference mesh pattern, the occurrence of moiré phenomenon is prevented and the contact point of the sensor line is not concentrated in any area, thereby minimizing the generation of foreign matters, and thus the visibility of the foreign matters is generated. The fall can be prevented.

Description

Touch sensor and touch screen panel using the same {TOUCH SENSOR COMPRISING ATYPICAL SENSOR PATTERN}

The present invention relates to a touch sensor and a touch screen panel using the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to a touch sensor in which a pattern for forming the touch sensor is irregularly shaped and a touch screen panel using the same.

The touch screen panel is an input device added to or embedded in a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display panel (PDP), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), an active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED), or the like. As an object, when an object such as a finger or a touch pen comes into contact with the screen, the device recognizes it as an input signal. Such touch screen panels are recently installed in mobile devices such as mobile phones, portable multimedia players (PMPs), and smart phones. In addition, navigation devices, netbooks, laptops, and digital information devices (DIDs) are used. It is used in many industries such as desktop computers using touch input operating systems, IPTV (Internet Protocol TV), high-tech fighters, tanks and armored vehicles.

The touch screen panel senses capacitance change to detect the input signal, capacitive type detects the change in resistance value by pressure, resistive type recognizes the input signal, and infrared rays are blocked by using infrared light emitting device and light receiving device. There is an infrared sensing type for recognizing an input signal, and the most commonly used type is a capacitive type, and the present invention also relates to such a capacitive touch screen panel and a touch sensor configuring the same.

In general, a capacitive touch screen panel is composed of two touch sensors laminated or a touch sensor formed on both sides of a substrate, and the touch sensor is formed in a conductive pattern to detect a change in capacitance. Since light must be transmitted, the conductive pattern is formed into a mesh pattern like a mesh. However, since the mesh pattern is a form in which thin conductors are repeatedly formed at regular intervals, there was a problem in that moiré phenomenon occurs when two touch sensors overlap.

In order to prevent the moire phenomenon as described above, a touch screen panel having a conventional atypical sensor pattern filed by the present applicant is disclosed in 'Patent Document 1', and a touch screen panel having a conventional atypical sensor pattern in FIG. 1. 2 is an enlarged view of portion A of FIG. 1.

A touch screen panel having a conventional atypical sensor pattern may prevent moiré phenomena by the atypical sensor pattern 1 as shown in FIG. The sensor pattern is dense in the a region), and the sensor pattern is not dense in any one region (a 'region).

As a result, a foreign matter is generated in a region where the sensor pattern is dense, and the foreign matter is further increased by a a region where the sensor pattern is not relatively dense. This causes a problem that the visibility is lowered.

That is, the touch screen panel having the conventional atypical sensor pattern prevents moiré phenomenon caused by the atypical sensor pattern, but the sensor pattern is inevitably concentrated due to excessive atypical deformation, resulting in a sense of foreign body and at the same time. There is a problem that visibility is reduced.

KR 10-2015-0143987 A (2015.12.24.)

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, the problem to be solved in the present invention is to prevent the occurrence of moiré phenomenon while preventing the generation of foreign matters touch sensor that can ensure good visibility and a touch screen using the same To provide a panel.

According to an aspect of the present embodiment, the sensor pattern includes a plurality of first sensor lines and a plurality of second sensor lines, and the sensor patterns include a plurality of units in which the first virtual reference line and the second virtual reference line overlap each other. It is formed based on a virtual reference mesh pattern including a cell, wherein the plurality of first sensor lines are atypical lines that change directions within a preset range with reference to the virtual first reference line, and the plurality of second lines The sensor line is an atypical line that changes direction within a preset range with reference to the virtual second reference line, and the plurality of contact points where the plurality of first sensor lines and the plurality of second sensor lines meet are the plurality of units. It provides a touch sensor, characterized in that distributedly arranged in the cell.

According to another aspect of the present embodiment, a sensor pattern including a plurality of first sensor lines and a plurality of second sensor lines, the sensor pattern is a plurality of units overlapping the virtual first reference line and the virtual second reference line It is formed based on a virtual reference mesh pattern including a cell, wherein the plurality of first sensor lines are atypical lines that change directions within a preset range with reference to the virtual first reference line, and the plurality of second lines The sensor line is an atypical line that changes direction within a preset range with reference to the virtual second reference line, and the plurality of contact points where the plurality of first sensor lines and the plurality of second sensor lines meet are the plurality of units. Provided is a touch screen panel comprising a panel in which two touch sensors are laminated in a cell.

As described above, the touch sensor and the touch screen panel according to the embodiments of the present invention can prevent the occurrence of moiré phenomenon and at the same time the contact point of the sensor line is not concentrated in any one area can minimize the generation of foreign matters As a result, the visibility can be prevented from being lowered due to the generation of foreign matter.

1 is a plan view of a touch screen panel having a conventional atypical sensor pattern.
FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of portion A of FIG. 1.
3 is a plan view of a touch sensor according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
4 and 5 are plan views of a touch sensor according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
6 is a plan view of the laminated touch sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, the touch sensor and the touch screen panel according to the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The touch sensor according to the present invention includes a plurality of first sensor lines and a plurality of second sensor lines. The touch sensor includes a mesh including (i) a plurality of first sensor lines extending in a first direction and (ii) a plurality of second sensor lines extending in a second direction and in contact with a plurality of first sensor lines and a plurality of contacts. It includes a plurality of channels forming a pattern. Here, the first direction or the second direction may be set to a specific direction such as a horizontal direction, a vertical direction, or an arbitrary inclination direction.

3 is a plan view of a touch sensor according to the present invention. The touch sensor according to the present invention includes a substrate 10, a plurality of channels 20 formed on the substrate, and a wiring pattern 30 connecting the channels 20 to an external circuit, and includes one end of the channel 20. The resistance measuring terminal 40 and the discharge terminal 50 may be further formed.

The substrate 10 is a region of the substrate on which the channel 20 and the wiring pattern 30 are formed, and may be used without limitation of materials such as a transparent film, a glass substrate, and a plastic substrate. In particular, the substrate 10 may be formed of a transparent film. The transparent film may be formed using at least one of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyimide (PI), acrylic (acryl), polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), and glass (glass). Can be.

A plurality of channels 20 are formed on the substrate 10 to sense a user's touch signal. As shown in FIG. 3, one channel 20 extends in a horizontal direction. A mesh pattern is formed in the form of the cross-section 22 and the plurality of second sensor lines 24 extending in the vertical direction. In this case, the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 are formed as an atypical line having a shape in which a plurality of unit lines 22a and 24a are continuously connected. The channel 20 according to the present invention is formed by a plurality of first sensor lines 22 and a plurality of second sensor lines 24 intersecting with each other, and thus four channels of the channel 20 will be described below. A cell 26 having the same contact point 25} is formed.

4 and 5 are plan views of the touch sensor according to the present invention, in which the sensor line between the contact 25 and the contact 25 is a straight line, and in FIG. 5, the contact 25 and the contact point are illustrated in FIG. 5. The case where the sensor line between 25 is curved is shown.

Hereinafter, a condition of a pattern in which the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 are generated will be described. For reference, as illustrated in FIGS. 4 and 5, virtual reference mesh patterns (dotted lines) formed of a plurality of first reference lines and a plurality of second reference lines are formed, which are first and second according to the present invention. As a baseline of the sensor lines 22, 24, it is not a direct component of the present invention. The virtual reference mesh pattern is composed of a plurality of unit cells, wherein the unit cells have a rectangular shape. For reference, a rectangle means a rectangle in which all four corners are right angles. And the unit cell of the embodiment of the present invention to be described below is based on a square consisting of 500㎛ horizontal and vertical length respectively.

For example, the first reference line may be a horizontal reference line, and the second reference line may be a vertical reference line. The first reference line and the second reference line may be perpendicular to each other, and the intersecting angle between the first reference line and the second reference line may be an acute angle or an obtuse angle. The first reference line or the second reference line may be set in a preset tilt direction.

First, in the touch sensor according to the present invention, when the channel 20 overlaps the virtual reference mesh pattern, the first sensor line 22 is ± 30% around the first reference line H of the virtual reference mesh pattern. It varies within the range of the following width. Similarly, the second sensor line 24 is varied within a range of ± 30% or less about the second reference line A of the virtual reference mesh pattern. For example, in the embodiment of the present invention, considering that the length of the unit cell has a length of 500 μm, as shown in FIG. 4, the first sensor line 22 is based on the horizontal reference line H. The first reference line or the first horizontal reference line H1 moved 150 μm in the upward direction and the second horizontal reference line or the second horizontal reference line H2 moved 150 μm in the downward direction are varied. In the same principle, as illustrated in FIG. 4, one second sensor line 24 may correspond to the 2-1 reference line or the first vertical reference line A1 which is moved 150 μm in the left direction based on the vertical reference line A. It is variable between the 2-2nd reference line or the 2nd vertical reference line A2 which moved 150 micrometers to the right direction. As a result, the width in which the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 are variable is 60% in total.

In addition, when the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 meet a line forming a ± 30% reference width, the direction of the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 is changed so as not to exceed the reference width. For example, when the first sensor line 22 meets the first horizontal reference line H1 or the second horizontal reference line H2, its direction is changed, and the second sensor line 24 is connected to the first vertical reference line A1 or When it encounters the second vertical reference line A2, its direction is switched. For reference, the direction in which the first sensor line 22 or the second sensor line 24 is switched means that the angle between each sensor line 22 and 24 with the corresponding reference lines A and H is + to −. Or-from + to {means the +,-criterion of the angle depends on the setting. For example, in the case of the first sensor line 22, if the angle between the horizontal reference line H is formed above the horizontal reference line H is determined as +, the case where the first sensor line 22 is formed below the horizontal reference line H is −. In addition, when the first sensor line 22 does not meet the horizontal reference line H, the first sensor line 22 may be arbitrarily extended to meet the horizontal reference line H}.

In the case of having an excessive atypical sensor pattern, such as the conventional atypical sensor pattern described above, the contact 25 of the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 may be concentrated in one region, thereby causing a sense of foreign matter. May be induced. However, in the touch sensor according to the present invention, since the fluctuation range of the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 is limited to 60% or less based on the virtual reference mesh pattern, the first sensor line 22 and the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 are limited. The contact 25 of the two sensor lines 24 is not concentrated in any one region. Therefore, since the touch sensor according to the present invention prevents the contact 25 from being dense, the foreign matter can be minimized, thereby preventing the visibility from being lowered due to the foreign matter.

In addition, the area of one cell 26 of the channel 20 may be ± 20% higher than the unit cell area of the virtual reference mesh pattern. That is, an area of one cell 26 of the channel 20 may have an area of 80 to 120% of the area of one cell of the virtual reference mesh pattern. For example, if the cell 26 of an area smaller than 80% of the cells of the hypothetical reference mesh pattern and the cell 26 of an area larger than 120% of the cells of the hypothetical reference mesh pattern are adjacent, the contact 25 It can act as a motivation to be dense in either area. In this way, when the contact point 25 is concentrated in one area, a foreign object may occur. The area of one cell 26 is based on the area of the rectangular unit reference pattern formed by four adjacent points in the virtual reference mesh pattern. By having a fluctuation range of 20% to 20%, the contact 25 can be prevented from being concentrated in any one region.

In addition, the plurality of first or second sensor lines 22 and 24 connecting the five consecutive contacts 25 among the plurality of contacts 25 may not be a straight line. That is, continuous straight lines are allowed only up to three first unit lines 22a or three second unit lines 24a connected to the four contacts 25, and the first unit line of the first sensor line 22 is allowed. The second unit line 24a of the 22a or the second sensor line 24 is not repeated four or more times in the same direction and at the same angle. If four or more first unit lines 22a or four or more second unit lines 24a are formed in a straight line, they may act as a motive for inducing moiré phenomenon.

In addition, the channel 20 according to the present invention is formed at a width of 20 μm or less (first at least 1 μm in consideration of processability and electrical conductivity) of lines of the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24. The length of the unit lines 22a and 24a may be 150% or less of the length of the unit line segment (500 μm) constituting one cell of the virtual reference mesh pattern. That is, in the embodiment of the present invention, it is preferable that one unit line 22a, 24a is formed at a maximum of 750 μm or less (for reference, the length of the unit line 22a, 24a optimized for visibility is 500 μm). . This is to prevent visibility from falling, and the line width of the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 is formed to exceed 20 μm or the length of the unit lines 22a and 24a exceeds 750 μm. If formed, there is a fear that the contact 25 is configured to be dense, which may lower the visibility.

As shown in FIG. 4, when the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 have an irregular linear shape, the angles of the unit lines 22a and 24a are formed to be 30 ° or less. That is, in the case of the first unit line 22a, the angle between the first reference line or the horizontal reference line H of the virtual reference mesh pattern is formed to be 30 ° or less, and in the case of the second unit line 24a, The angle between the second reference line or the vertical reference line A of the reference mesh pattern of is less than 30 °.

On the other hand, the first sensor line 22 and the second sensor line 24 according to the present invention may be formed as a curve as shown in Figure 5, in this case, the rules described above are applied.

FIG. 6 is a plan view of the laminated touch sensor according to the present invention, in which two touch sensors as described above may be laminated to form a single touch screen panel. When the two touch sensors according to the present invention are laminated, the yield and the ESD (Electro Static Discharge) resistance rate are improved.

Table 1 compares the yields of the conventional laminated touch sensor and the laminated touch sensor according to the present invention, and Table 2 compares the ESD resistance rates of the conventional laminated touch sensor and the laminated touch sensor according to the present invention. Referring to Table 1, the yield was improved from 89.0% to 97.4%, and referring to Table 2, the ESD resistance was improved from 36.0% to 88.0%. This can be seen that the disconnection rate is reduced by securing a plurality of contact points 25 than in the related art, thereby decreasing the defective rate and increasing resistance to ESD.

The wiring pattern 30 is a component that transfers the touch signal sensed from the channel 20 to an external circuit (not shown) and is connected to one end of the channel 20 formed on the substrate 10.

The resistance measurement terminal 40 is formed at the other end of the sensor terminal 20 that is not connected to the wiring pattern 30, that is, the terminal connected to the wiring pattern 30 among the both ends of the channel 20 is one end. The disconnection of the electrode is used to detect whether the resistance is increased or decreased.

Specifically, whether the sensor pattern 20 or the wiring pattern 30 connected to the wiring pattern 30 is disconnected or short-circuited using the voltage measured by the resistance measuring terminal 40 while applying current to the wiring pattern 30. You can judge. For example, when the voltage measured by the resistance measuring terminal 40 is measured to be lower than the preset normal value, the channel 20 may be determined to be disconnected. When the measured voltage is measured to be higher than the normal value, the channel 20 may be determined. It can be determined that a short circuit has occurred.

The discharge terminal 50 is formed at the other end of the side end, which is not connected to the wiring pattern 30 of the channel 20, that is, the end connected to the wiring pattern 30 of both ends of the channel 20 is called one end. 20) is a component for discharging the static electricity induced in.

Meanwhile, the channel 20 may be formed in a form embedded in the substrate 10, that is, intaglio. When the channel 20 is formed in an intaglio, the substrate on which the sensor pattern is formed is wound on a roll, the substrate is rolled off from the roll, filled with a conductive material in the intaglio, and then rolled again on a roll. The process is convenient because of the to-roll method and is suitable for mass production.

The present embodiments are for describing the technical idea of the present embodiment, and the scope of the technical idea of the present embodiment is not limited by these embodiments. The scope of protection of the present embodiment should be interpreted by the following claims, and all technical ideas within the scope equivalent thereto should be construed as being included in the scope of the present embodiment.

H: horizontal reference line H1: first horizontal reference line
H2: second horizontal reference line A: vertical reference line
A1: first vertical reference line A2: second vertical reference line
10: substrate 20: channel
22: first sensor line 22a: first unit line
24: second sensor line 24a: second unit line
25: contact 26: cell
30: wiring pattern 40: resistance measurement terminal
50: discharge terminal

Claims (13)

A sensor pattern including a plurality of first sensor lines and a plurality of second sensor lines,
The sensor pattern is formed based on a virtual reference mesh pattern including a plurality of unit cells in which a first virtual reference line and a second virtual reference line overlap each other.
The plurality of first sensor lines are atypical lines that change directions within a preset range with reference to the virtual first reference line.
The plurality of second sensor lines are atypical lines that change directions within a preset range with reference to the virtual second reference line.
The plurality of contact points where the plurality of first sensor lines and the plurality of second sensor lines meet are distributed in the plurality of unit cells,
The first sensor line is an irregular line that is variably formed within a range of a predetermined width from the virtual first reference line, and the second sensor line is variable within a range of the predetermined width from the virtual second reference line. Is an irregular line formed by,
The first sensor line includes a plurality of first unit lines, and the second sensor line includes a plurality of second unit lines, and at least four consecutive first unit lines or at least four consecutive first units lines. 2 unit lines change direction at least once,
The first sensor line includes three consecutive first unit lines without changing the sign of the virtual angle with respect to the virtual first reference line, or the second sensor line represents the sign of the virtual angle with respect to the virtual second reference line. It includes three continuous second unit lines without switching,
The first sensor line is changed from the virtual first reference line when the first sensor line meets the first-first reference line or the 1-2 reference line corresponding to the preset width, and the second sensor line is the second virtual line. The touch sensor of claim 2, wherein the direction of the touch sensor is changed when a reference is made to the 2-1 reference line or the 2-2 reference line corresponding to the preset width. The method according to claim 1,
The predetermined width range is set to a width of ± 30%, the width of ± 30% is based on the length of one side of the unit cell, the touch sensor. delete delete The method according to claim 1,
The first unit line has a touch angle of 30 ° or less with respect to the virtual first reference line, and the second unit line has a touch angle of 30 ° or less with respect to the virtual second reference line. sensor. delete delete The method according to claim 1,
The first sensor line includes three consecutive first unit lines while maintaining the same angle or
The second sensor line includes three second unit lines that are continuous while maintaining the same angle. The method according to claim 1,
The length of the first unit line and / or the second unit line is a touch sensor, characterized in that less than 150% of the length of one side of the unit cell. The method according to claim 1,
The first sensor line or the second unit line is a touch sensor, characterized in that the straight or curved. The method according to claim 1,
The area of the unit pattern of the figure formed by the four adjacent contacts in the sensor pattern, the touch sensor, characterized in that the variation range of ± 20% of the area of one unit cell of the virtual reference mesh pattern. The method according to claim 1,
Touch sensors, characterized in that the line width of the first sensor line and the second sensor line is formed between 1 ~ 20㎛. A touch screen panel comprising a panel in which two touch sensors according to any one of claims 1 to 2, 5 and 8 to 12 are laminated.

Images