Apparatus for displaying and sensing images

Device for displaying and sensing images

APPARATUS FOR DISPLAYING AND SENSING IMAGES

The invention relates to an integrated capture and display device, which provides image display and image capture functions.

Flat panel display devices are widely used in combination with computing devices, portable devices, and entertainment devices such as televisions. These displays generally use a plurality of pixels distributed on a substrate to display images. Each pixel includes a number of light-emitting elements of different colors to represent each image element. The light-emitting elements are usually called sub-pixels and generally emit red, green, and blue light. Pixels and sub-pixels are not distinguished here; all light-emitting elements are referred to as pixels. Various flat panel display technologies are known, such as plasma displays, liquid crystal displays, and light emitting diode displays.

Flat panel display devices can be used in video communication systems. A typical commercially available system uses a display together with an imaging device located above or below the center of the display, such as a digital video camera, where the display communicates with a similar remote system. Each imaging device places the image of the person in front of the display. The microphone records speech at the same time. The video and speech are sent to the remote system via the Internet, computer network, or telephone network, where the video is displayed and the speech is played on the speaker. In this way, two (or more) individuals that are far apart from each other can see each other on a pair of displays at the same time and can connect to each other visually and audibly in a separate position. This type of video interaction enhances communication.

It is preferable to have an imaging device in the video communication system, and the imaging device is located at the point of the individual's gaze, thus giving the impression of eye contact. However, it is very difficult. When talking to a remote person, the person who is talking tends to look at the display, so it gives the impression that the person is not watching the conversation with him or her.

The above problems have been solved. For example, in the commonly assigned US Patent No. 2008/0106628 and US Patent No. 2008/0106629, by providing a transparent opening in the display and setting one or more digital cameras on the display After that, the individual who directly looks at the display will also look at at least one camera, giving the impression of eye contact with the remote individual.

Similarly, U.S. Patent No. 7,034,866 describes a display-camera with a combination of discrete display and camera elements. US Patent No. 5,340,978 describes an LCD panel and solid-state image sensor. US Patent No. 7,535,468 discloses an integrated sensing display having a display element integrated with an image sensing element. US Patent No. 2009/0146967 discloses a display device including a display part; a light irradiation part; a plurality of light conversion lenses; and a plurality of light receiving elements. WO 2004/107301 discloses microlenses intermixed with display pixels.

In various publications, the image sensor is generally located behind the display, forming a relatively thick, integrated structure with multiple, separate elements that must be assembled in a relatively complex structure. In some cases, the digital cameras used are relatively thick to provide an appropriate long optical axis for high-quality imaging. In other cases, the lens element is located very close to or on the imaging element, which reduces the quality of image capture. In other cases, relatively few image sensing elements are provided, which reduces the resolution of the formed image. Therefore, conventional image capture and display systems generally suffer from reduced image quality (such as resolution and clarity) or thicker than ideal.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that combine thin films of light-emitting materials to form light-emitting elements have many advantages in flat panel display devices and are useful in optical systems. For example, an organic LED color display includes an array of organic LED light-emitting elements. Alternatively, inorganic materials may be used in the polycrystalline semiconductor matrix and may include phosphorescent crystals or quantum dots. Other thin films of organic or inorganic materials can also be used to control the injection, transfer, or blocking of electric charges to the light-emitting thin film materials, and this is known in the art. These materials are placed between the electrodes on the substrate, and there is an encapsulation cover layer or board. When current passes through the luminescent material, light is emitted from the pixel. The frequency of the emitted light depends on the nature of the material used. In this display, light can be emitted through the substrate (bottom emitter) or through the package cover (top emitter) or both.

The LED device includes a patterned light-emitting layer, in which different materials are used in this mode, and when current passes through the materials, they are used to emit light of different colors. Alternatively, a device can use a single light-emitting layer, for example, a white light emitter, together with color filters to form a full-color display. It is also known to use white sub-pixels that do not include color filters. A design using an unpatterned white emitter has been proposed, together with a four-color pixel design including red, green, and blue filters and sub-pixels, and an unfiltered white sub-pixel to improve the efficiency of the device.

Two different methods for controlling pixels in flat panel display devices are well known: active matrix control and passive matrix control. In the active matrix device, the control elements are distributed on the flat substrate. Generally, each sub-pixel is controlled by a control element, and each control element includes at least one transistor. For example, in a simple active matrix organic light emitting (OLED) display, each control element includes two transistors (a selection transistor and a power transistor) and a capacitor for storing charges that specify the brightness of the sub-pixel. Each light-emitting element generally uses an independent control electrode and a common electrode.

The active matrix control device of the prior art generally includes thin film semiconductor materials, such as silicon, transistors and capacitors formed by a photolithography process. The thin film silicon can be amorphous or polycrystalline. Compared with traditional transistors made of crystalline silicon wafers, thin-film transistors made of amorphous or polycrystalline silicon are relatively larger and have lower performance. In addition, such thin-film devices generally display local or large-area non-uniformities, which lead to perceptible non-uniformities in displays using such materials. When improvements in manufacturing and material handling are completed, the manufacturing process is expensive and the performance of thin-film devices continues to be lower than that of crystalline silicon devices.

Masumura et al. discussed an LCD display using a crystalline silicon substrate in US Patent No. 2006/0055864. Matsumura describes a method for selectively transferring and fixing a pixel control device made of a first semiconductor substrate on a second flat display substrate. The circuit interconnection in the display pixel control device and the connection from the bus bar and the control electrode to the pixel control device. The article "A hemispherical electronic eye camera based on compressible silicon optoelectronics" describes a high-performance, hemispherical electronic eye camera based on single crystal silicon in "Nature" vol.454, page 748 in August 2008. However, these publications do not provide an integrated image capture and display device.

WO2010046643 describes an optical sensor using a wafer carrier.

Therefore, it is necessary to integrate active matrix light-emitting elements in a compact and robust structure with improved imaging performance to improve the performance of the integrated image capture and display device.

According to the present invention, the present invention provides a device for displaying and sensing images, including: a display substrate with a display area on a device side of the display substrate; a plurality of pixels located on the device side of the display substrate In the display area above, each pixel includes a control electrode, a transparent electrode spaced from the control electrode, and at least one layer of luminescent material between the control electrode and the transparent electrode; a plurality of pixel control wafer holders Each pixel control chip carrier is related to at least one pixel and has a chip carrier substrate independent of the display substrate, and the chip carrier substrate is located and bonded to the display substrate in the display area On the device side, each pixel control chip carrier has at least one connection pad and at least one pixel control circuit, wherein each pixel control circuit is electrically connected to the control electrode of the related pixel through one of the connection pads , Used to drive the control electrode to cause the luminescent material to emit light through the transparent electrode; one or more sensor chip carriers, each sensor chip carrier has a chip carrier independent of the display substrate A device substrate, the chip carrier substrate is located and bonded to the device side of the display substrate in the display area, each sensor chip carrier has at least one connection pad and an image sensor array, Used to sense an image and form a sensed image signal; and a transparent cover, the transparent cover is spaced from the device side of the display substrate and adhered to it, there are a plurality of them formed on the transparent cover or the transparent cover For the imaging lenses in the transparent cover, each imaging lens is spaced apart from each other and corresponds to an image sensor array for forming an imaging plane on the corresponding image sensor array.

The advantage of the present invention is that by installing the lens in or on the transparent cover of the integrated display and image sensing device, the overall thickness of the device can be reduced, while maintaining a sufficiently long optical axis to provide improved improvement. The imaging quality. Relatively fewer individual components are required, reducing complexity and cost. The high level of integrated circuitization in the chip carrier provides improved display image quality, provides opportunities for high-resolution image sensor arrays, and provides a variety of imaging sensor arrays, which can enable various image capture Access and video sequences have different attributes. For example, by performing only high-resolution capture of an important area of a scene and low-resolution capture of other scenes, bandwidth can be reduced. In some embodiments, three-dimensional information or three-dimensional capture can be easily performed without complicated lens or mirror structure.

Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, the device for displaying and sensing images includes a display substrate 10, and a display area 11 is provided on the device side 9 of the display substrate 10. A plurality of pixels 30 (Figure 3) are located on the device side 9 of the display substrate 10 in the display area 11. Each pixel 30 (Figure 3) includes control electrodes 12A, 12B spaced apart from the transparent electrode 16, and at least one layer of luminescent material 14. Located between the control electrodes 12A, 12B and the transparent electrode 16. Each of the plurality of chips or devices 20 provides pixel control to at least one pixel, and has a chip carrier substrate 28 independent of the display substrate 10, which is located and bonded to the device side of the display substrate 10 in the display area 11 9 above, each wafer carrier 20 provides pixel control, has at least one connection pad 26 and at least one pixel control circuit 50. The pixel control circuit 50 (FIG. 2) is electrically connected to the control electrodes 12A, 12B of the relevant pixel through the connection pad 26, and is used to drive the control electrodes 12A, 12B to cause the luminescent material layer 14 to emit light 6A, 6B through the transparent electrode 16. One or more sensor arrays 23 may be formed in the wafer carrier 20 (Figures 1 and 2). Alternatively, a separate sensor wafer carrier 20B (FIG. 3) having a sensor array may be used, each sensor wafer carrier 20B having a wafer carrier substrate 28 independent of the display substrate 10, and The pixel control chip carrier is located and bonded to the device side 9 of the display substrate 10 in the display area 11. Each sensor chip carrier 20B includes at least one connection pad 26, and the image sensor array 23 is used to sense an image and form a sensed image signal. The image sensor circuit 52 may be included for performing image processing operations on the sensed image or the sensed image signal.

The transparent cover 40 (Figure 1) has a top side 41A and an opposite bottom side 41B closer to the sensor than the top side. There are a plurality of imaging lenses 42 on the transparent cover 40 or in the transparent cover 40. Each imaging lens 42 is spaced apart from each other and corresponds to the image sensor array 23 to form an imaging plane on the corresponding image sensor array 23. The planarization and insulating layer 18 can be embedded in the wafer carrier 20 and provide a smooth surface for forming the electrodes (12A, 12B, 16) and the light-emitting layer 14. For example, the electrodes 12A, 12B may be reflective and formed of metal, while the common electrode 16 may be transparent and formed of a metal oxide such as indium tin oxide or aluminum zinc oxide.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the planarization and insulating layer 18 may be formed of a material having a refractive index lower than 2 and preferably lower than 1.6. The sensor wafer carrier is generally formed of crystalline silicon with a refractive index greater than 3. In the embodiment of the present invention, the refractive index of the planarization and insulating layer will be smaller than, preferably substantially smaller than the refractive index of the front surface of the sensor wafer carrier in the area of the image sensor array 23. In these embodiments, light will be emitted from the light-emitting layer and captured in the display device so that the light laterally passes through the substrate, the light-emitting side, and other layers of the device. The large difference between the refraction index of the flattening or insulating layer and the refraction index of the wafer holder prevents light from being absorbed by the sensor wafer holder and entering the image sensor array 23, which generally strikes at a small incident angle On the wafer carrier. However, if the refractive index of the planarization and insulating layer 18 is almost equal to the refractive index of the sensor wafer holder, the light captured in the planarization and insulating layer will enter the image sensor in the sensor wafer holder The array 23 provides a large number of photons to the image sensor array 23, which increases the noise floor and therefore reduces the noise ratio of the image sensor array 23. However, with a large change in the refractive index at the surface of the sensor wafer carrier, very little captured light will enter the sensor wafer carrier. Because the lens gathers light from the surrounding environment to the sensor wafer holder, many light hits the sensor wafer holder with a large incident angle and enters the sensor wafer holder to be sensed, even though it is sensing The refractive index on the surface of the wafer carrier varies greatly.

FIG. 1 is a more detailed cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 provides a simplified cross-sectional view of the wafer carrier 20 having the pixel control circuit 50 and the image sensor circuit 52. FIG. 2 also illustrates the micro lens 43 formed on the image sensor array 23. The top view of FIG. 3 illustrates the entire image capture and display device according to an embodiment of the present invention, which has a display area 11 surrounding pixels 30, a pixel control chip carrier 20A, a sensor chip carrier 20B, and includes a controller 60 And control circuit 62.

The connection pads 26 can electrically connect the wafer carriers to each other and are connected to the external controller 60 (Fig. 3) through the connection wires 32 (Fig. 1). The connection pads also connect the pixel control circuit 50 to the pixel electrodes (12A, 12B), for example, through the connection pad 26R for driving red pixels, the connection pad 26G for driving green pixels, and the connection pad for driving blue pixels. 26B and connection pad 26W for driving white pixels. These pixel arrays form a full-color display. The color filter 24 (FIG. 1 and FIG. 7) may be located on the light-emitting area of each pixel 30 to filter the light emitted by the self-luminous layer 14, for example, if the light emitted by the self-luminous layer is white.

The wafer carrier 20 may include a sensor. In this embodiment, the pixel control circuit 50 and the image sensor circuit 52 in the wafer carrier 20 are formed on the common substrate 28 and in the common wafer carrier 20. Or (as shown in FIGS. 3 and 7) the pixel control wafer carrier 20A may be a wafer carrier separate from the sensor wafer carrier 20B. As shown in FIG. 4, the separate sensor chip carrier 20B includes an array of image sensor elements 22 forming an image sensor array 23, when exposed to image light 8A, 8B from a scene through the imaging lens 42 When, it can form a digital image (Figure 8). As shown in FIG. 3, the sensor wafer carrier 20B can be arranged in rows and columns. One of the sensor wafer holders 20B may be located between two or more pixel control wafer holders 20A in the lateral direction, so that the sensor wafer holders 20B can be mixed with pixel control wafer holders 20A in the display area 11. A plurality of pixel control wafer holders 20A can form a first array in the display area 11 and a plurality of sensor wafer holders 20B can form a sensor wafer holder matrix interspersed with the first array in the display area 11 . The number of the pixel control wafer carrier 20A may be different from the number of the sensor wafer carrier 20B, for example, the sensor wafer carrier 20B may be less than the pixel control wafer carrier 20A. Alternatively, the pixel control wafer carrier may be the same wafer carrier 20 as the sensor wafer carrier.

The image lens 42 can be directly molded on the top side 41A or the bottom side 41B of the cover 40, or on the top side 41A and the bottom side 41B at the same time. Alternatively, the image lens 42 may be formed in a separate lens film 44, as shown in FIG. 5. The lens film 44 can be located on the outer side of the cover 40 (the top side 41A of the cover opposite to the light-emitting layer 14) or the inner side of the cover 40 (the bottom side 41B of the cover 40 adjacent to the light-emitting layer 14) in line with the image sensor array 23 Or on the outside of the cover 40 and the inside of the cover 40.

The wafer carrier 20, and especially the image sensor array 23 and the pixels 30 can be arranged in the display area 11, so that the perspective of the wafer carrier 20 and the image sensor array 23 can be reduced. The wafer holders can be laterally located between the pixels. For example, the control electrodes 12A and 12B can be separated in the common layer and the sensor wafer holder 20 is laterally located between the two control electrodes 12A and 12B (as shown in Section 7). As shown in the figure). The lateral position means different positions on the substrate 10. The sensor wafer carrier 20B can be in the same plane as the two control electrodes 12A, 12B, in a layer on the side of the two control electrodes 12A, 12B opposite to the substrate 10, or in the two control electrodes 12A, 12B and the substrate. Between 10 layers. Therefore, the sensor wafer carrier 20B can be coplanar with the two control electrodes 12A, 12B, but it is not necessary. In any embodiment, a space is provided in the electrode layer between the control electrodes 12A and 12B for light to pass through the sensor wafer carrier 20B, and so that the light emitted by the organic material layer 14 is not affected by the sensor wafer. The carrier 20B is blurred. Alternatively, at least a part of the control electrodes 12A, 12B are partially transparent, and the sensor wafer carrier located under the partially transparent portion is between the substrate 10 and the control electrodes 12A, 12B.

In another embodiment of the integrated display and image capture device of the present invention, the control electrodes in the display area are laterally located on at least two sides of the adjacent sensor chip carrier. For example, as shown in FIG. 6, the area of the pixel 30 may be adjacent to three sides of the image sensor 23 and may include the wafer carrier connection pad 26. This arrangement also has the useful effect of realizing the positioning of the color filter 24 on the image sensor array 23, and therefore the common filter is used to filter the scene image light and the emitted light. Alternatively, in an RGBW implementation with a white light emitter, the image sensor 23 is partially surrounded by white pixels, so that no color filter is used. Therefore, the image formed by the image sensor can be a color image, and there is no need to directly form a color filter on the image sensor array 23, thereby reducing the cost of the image sensor array 23. A plurality of image sensor arrays 23 on one or more wafer carriers 20 can be located under different color filters 24 to form full-color digital images.

When the pixels do not output light, the image sensor and the pixel control circuit can be controlled to sense the image, thereby ensuring that only ambient light is used to form the image. Or, when the pixels do not output light, the image sensor and the pixel control circuit can be controlled to sense the image, and the captured image can be compensated to adjust the emitted light.

As shown in FIG. 7, a lens film 44 having an imaging lens 42 can also be placed on the substrate 10 of the wafer carrier 20 on the opposite device side 9. The wafer carrier 20 includes connection pads 26, 26R, 26W, etc., for driving the pixel electrodes 12A, 12B, for example, conducting current to the common electrode 16 through the light-emitting layer 14. In this case, the common electrode 16 may be reflective. The color filter 24 may be located on the outside of the substrate 10 (as shown) or on the common device side 9 with the wafer carrier 20.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, when multiple image sensor arrays 23 are used, the image sensor arrays 23, or the image lenses, or both may be different. For example, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, two different wafer carriers 20 on the substrate 10 can have different image sensor arrays 23A, 23B and lenses 42A, 42B. The image sensors 23A and 23B can cover the range of different imaging attributes or combinations of attributes, and are available in terms of size, resolution, focal length, image sensor element size, array size, bit depth, exposure time, spectral sensitivity, optical axis, The focal plane, viewing angle capture area, magnification, sensitivity, or any other imaging properties are different. For example, the spectral sensitivity of the image sensor arrays 23A and 23B may be within or outside the range of the visible spectrum. Different technologies can be used in the image capturing device, such as CMOS or CCD technologies known in the art. The lenses 42A, 42B may also differ in size, focal length, viewing angle, and any other lens properties. Lens formed in the lens film 44 to the substrate or plastic film imaging lenses 42A, 42B may also be one or more different sensor chip is mounted is additionally provided on either side of the substrate 10 having the preferred imaging 10 The difference in characteristics is the better light path. Therefore, in the embodiment of the present invention, the first imaging lens and the first sensor wafer holder can define the first optical path, and the second sensor wafer holder and the second imaging lens can define A second optical path different from the first optical path. In some embodiments, the optical elements are different, or in other embodiments, the number of optical elements in the optical path is different, or the type and number of optical elements are different from the different optical paths associated with different sensor wafer holders .

According to the embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, the first sensor wafer carrier 20B can form a scene on the image sensor array 23A of the first sensor wafer carrier 20B The first image of and the imaging lens corresponding to the second sensor chip carrier 20C can form the same scene on the image sensor array 23B of the second sensor chip carrier 20C, which is different from the first image Or a second image that forms a part of the first image of the same scene on the optical sensor of the second sensor chip carrier 20C. Therefore, different but related images of public scenes can be generated. Or, for example, by using the non-overlapping area of the viewing angle or by controlling the viewing angle, the position of the image sensor on the substrate is displayed, or by using different optical axes, different image sensors can form images of different scenes.

The use of multiple image sensors is advantageous. The digital images formed from the two image sensors can be combined to form higher-resolution digital images or digital images with low noise, or stitched panoramas. In addition, by using different optical systems, different types of digital images can be formed and a composite image can be formed. Different viewing angles (angles) of the same area or object in the scene can be formed from image sensors located in a common display or at different points on different optical axes. This realizes the formation of three-dimensional images from different angles, for example, by providing an image processing circuit in a chip carrier or an external computing device. Images focused at different points in the scene can be combined to form a digital image with clear background and foreground, and the sharpness of each image can provide information about the distance of points within the scene. Form and use wide or narrow viewing angle images as needed. An image with variable resolution can be formed, for example, by combining a high-resolution image at the center of the scene and a low-resolution image of a larger scene. By limiting the resolution of the part of the image to the part that requires a higher resolution, this is useful in reducing the bandwidth or image size.

In operation, the controller receives and processes information signals according to the requirements of the display device and transmits the processed signals and control information to each chip carrier and pixel control circuit in the device. The processed signal includes brightness information of each light-emitting pixel element. The brightness information can be stored in an analog or digital memory element corresponding to each light-emitting pixel element. Then the wafer carriers activate the pixel electrodes connected to them. At the same time, or in response to the signal, the image sensor is activated to form a digital image of the scene in front of the display. The digital image can be communicated to the controller via the same signal line that provides the displayed image. If more than one image is formed, each can be communicated to the controller. The controller can combine or process images or transfer them to remote computing devices.

The present invention also has the advantage of providing a high-performance pixel driving circuit and a high-performance image sensing device. By using a wafer carrier, such as a crystalline silicon substrate, a very fast and small circuit can be constructed, such as for control, processing or communication. Conversely, thin-film circuits are too large and too slow to provide these advantages. In addition, by integrating the chip carrier on the device side of the substrate forming the light-emitting pixels, a common chip carrier can be used to control the pixels and form image signals, reducing device complexity and greatly improving integration and reducing device thickness. This provides higher performance and improved durability. A particularly important feature of the present invention is the integration of the image lens into the system. By integrating the lens in or on the cover, a mechanically durable and very thin structure is formed. At the same time, the image lens and the image sensor are spaced apart to provide a longer optical axis, allowing the formation of higher-quality images on the image sensor array 23. Compared with the lens system in which the lens is directly placed on the image sensor, the image quality is reduced, or the sensor is placed outside the display device, which increases the thickness and reduces the mechanical durability.

In addition, having high-performance pixel drive circuits in very large displays integrated with high-performance image sensing devices provides other advantages and opportunities. In some embodiments, the control signal may be provided to the pixel driving circuit, and the control signal may be provided to the image sensor device at the same time, so as to control the brightness condition of the image sensor device. For example, during the startup of the image sensing device, the high-performance pixel driving circuit can interrupt the current flow to the light-emitting elements of the display, so as to reduce the flicker caused by the light emitted by the light-emitting elements during the image capturing period. Alternatively, during the period when the image sensing device is activated to provide greater brightness in the environment, the high-performance pixel driving circuit can provide very high-level brightness to illuminate the sensor. These or other conditions can be performed simultaneously on the entire display or on different areas of the display. For example, in some embodiments, the pixel drive circuit can provide very high-level brightness on one side of the display, while the image sensing device on the other side of the display is activated to provide a specific shadow pattern or clear certain imaging. Artifacts, such as red eyes.

The image display and capture device of the present invention can be produced by providing a substrate, such as a glass substrate commercially used for display devices. The adhesive layer can be formed on the substrate and the wafer carrier is printed on the adhesive layer using, for example, the process taught in the commonly assigned US Patent Application No. 12/191,478 under joint examination. The adhesive layer is then cured and a subsequent covering layer is formed on the wafer carrier. Traditional photolithography processes can be used to form wires that are connected to the connection pads on the wafer carrier through vias. ITO or metal can be used to form electrodes, for example, by sputtering or evaporation, and by electrical connection to the wafer carrier by using a photolithography process. The vapor deposition process can then deposit the organic layer. The upper electrode, such as metal or metal oxide, can be deposited on the organic layer to form an organic light emitting diode.

The additional bus bar, for example, using the connecting line 32, can provide various signals, including timing (such as clock) signals, data signals, selection signals, power connections or ground connections. These signals can be analog or digital, such as digital addresses or data values. The analog data value can be provided as charge or voltage. The storage register can be digital (for example, including a flip-flop) or analog (for example, including a capacitor for storing charges).

In an embodiment of the present invention, the display device is an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. The controller can be implemented as a wafer carrier and bonded to the substrate. The controller can be located around the substrate or on the outside of the substrate, and includes conventional integrated circuits. It should also be noted that a separate controller can be provided for providing image data to the chip carrier and for obtaining and synthesizing the captured images. The controller for synthesizing captured images will receive image data from a plurality of sensor chip mounts 20 and self-modify the image data to form one or more images. The controller can further use this data to perform other useful functions, including performing facial or other biometric recognition, face detection, gesture or observation decision area, hand and finger tracking, and one or Gesture recognition of multiple users.

According to various embodiments of the present invention, the wafer carriers can be constructed in various ways, such as using one or two rows of connection pads along the length of the wafer carrier. The interconnected bus bars and wires can be formed of various materials and can be deposited on the device substrate using various methods. For example, the interconnection busbars and wires may be evaporated or sputtered metals, such as aluminum or aluminum alloys, magnesium or silver. Alternatively, the interconnection busbars and wires can be made of cured conductive ink or metal oxide. In a cost-effective embodiment, the interconnection busbars and wires are formed in a single layer.

The present invention is particularly applicable to a multi-pixel device embodiment using a large device substrate, such as glass, plastic, or foil, which has a plurality of wafer carriers arranged in a regular arrangement on the device substrate. According to the circuits in the wafer carrier, each wafer carrier can control a plurality of pixels formed on the device substrate and respond to control signals. Individual pixel groups or multiple pixel groups can be located on tiled elements, which can be assembled to form the entire display.

According to the present invention, the wafer carrier provides distributed pixel control circuits on the substrate. Compared with the device substrate, the wafer carrier is a relatively small integrated circuit and includes a circuit that includes wires, connection pads, passive components such as resistors or capacitors formed on a separate substrate, or active components such as transistors Or diode. The manufacturing wafer carrier is separated from the display substrate, and then the wafer carrier is applied to the display substrate. Details of these processes can be found in, for example, U.S. Patent No. 6,879,098; U.S. Patent No. 7,557,367; U.S. Patent No. 7,622,367; U.S. Patent No. 20070032089; U.S. Patent No. 20090199960 and U.S. Patent No. 20100123268.

Using silicon or silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers using known processes for manufacturing semiconductor devices, it is preferable to manufacture the wafer carriers. Then separate each wafer carrier before bonding to the device substrate. Therefore, the crystalline base of each wafer carrier can be regarded as a substrate separated from the device substrate and the wafer carrier circuit is provided on the base. Therefore, the plurality of wafer carriers have corresponding plurality of substrates separated from the device substrate and mutually separated from each other. In particular, the independent substrate is separated from the substrate on which the pixels are formed, and the total area of the independent wafer carrier substrate is smaller than the device substrate.

The wafer carrier may have a crystalline substrate to provide active devices with higher performance than existing devices, such as thin-film amorphous or polysilicon devices. The wafer carriers preferably have a thickness of 100 um or less, and more preferably 20 um or less. This facilitates the formation of bonding and planarizing materials on the wafer carrier, which can then be implemented using traditional spin or curtain coating techniques. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the wafer carriers formed on the crystalline silicon substrate are arranged in a geometric array and bonded to the device substrate using an adhesive or planarization material. The connection pads on the surface of the wafer carrier are used to connect each wafer carrier to signal lines, power bus bars and electrodes to drive pixels. The wafer carrier can control at least four pixels.

Since these wafer carriers are formed in a semiconductor substrate, modern photolithography tools can be used to form the circuits of the wafer carrier. With this type of tool, feature sizes of 0.5 microns or less are easily available. For example, modern semiconductor production lines can achieve a width of 90 nm or 45 nm and can be used to manufacture the wafer carrier of the present invention. However, once the chip carriers are assembled to the display substrate, the chip carriers need connection pads for forming electrical connections to the circuit layer provided on the chip carrier. The size of the connection pads must be determined based on the feature size (such as 5um) of the photolithography tool used on the display substrate and the alignment of the chip carrier to the circuit layer (such as +/-5um). Therefore, for example, the connecting pad may be 15um wide and there is a 5um gap between the pads. This shows that the pads will generally be significantly larger than the transistor circuits formed in the wafer carrier.

The pads can generally be formed in the metallization layer on the wafer carrier on the transistor. It is preferable to make the wafer carrier have as small a surface area as possible to achieve low manufacturing cost.

By using a wafer carrier with an independent substrate (such as containing crystalline silicon), which has better performance than a circuit formed directly on the substrate (such as amorphous or polycrystalline silicon), a device with higher performance is provided. Because crystalline silicon not only has higher performance, but also has smaller active components (such as transistors), so the circuit size can be reduced. MEMS structures can also be used to form useful wafer carriers, such as Yoon, Lee, Yang and Jang in "A novel use of MEMs switches in driving AMOLED", Digest of Technical Papers of the Society for Information Display, 2008, 3.4, page 13 described.

The device substrate may include glass and circuit layers, made by evaporating or sputtering metals or metal alloys such as aluminum or silver, and formed on a planarization layer (such as resin) patterned using photolithography techniques known in the art . The wafer carriers are formed using traditional techniques established in the integrated circuit industry.

By appropriately creating the sensor-chip mounter matrix, combined with the selected optical path corresponding to the image sensor array 23, the present invention can handle various useful applications.

Referring to Figure 10, in an embodiment of the present invention, the sensor wafer carrier is built on the two sensors of the sensor wafer carrier (such as 20B, 20C)-wafer carrier matrix 25A In 25B, each sensor wafer carrier has an image sensor array (such as 23A and 23B in Fig. 9). The sensor-wafer carrier matrices 25A, 25B in Fig. 10, Fig. 11, and Fig. 13 only include the wafer carriers within the rectangle of the dotted line. One of the two sensor-wafer carrier matrices (e.g. 25A) is laterally offset from the other sensor-wafer carrier matrix (e.g. 25B) in the row or column direction, allowing it to have Different images with slightly different views of the public scene to be sensed. These related images include stereo pairs.

The sensor wafer carrier 20B on the display substrate 10 can be arranged in the first horizontal row and the first vertical column to form a first sensor-chip carrier matrix, and can be arranged on the sensor wafer carrier The second horizontal row and second vertical column of the holder 20C form a second sensor-wafer carrier matrix so that the first and second vertical columns can be horizontally offset from one to the other. Generally, the first and second rows are offset from each other in a direction that is not parallel to the first or second row, for example, parallel and perpendicular to the first and second rows or at an angle of 45 degrees, where the first and second rows are parallel of. The positions of rows and columns can be interchanged at any time so that rows become columns and vice versa. The rows and columns can be orthogonal or non-orthogonal. The sensor wafer holders 20B and 20C may be interspersed between the pixel control wafer holders 20A.

Referring to FIG. 11, in another embodiment, the sensor wafer carrier 20B may be laterally located on one side of the sensor wafer carrier 20C. In this arrangement, the sensor chip holders 20B and 20C can mimic the left and right eyes of the human brain.

Because the sensor chip carrier 20B has a slightly different physical position on the display substrate 10 than the sensor chip carrier 20C, the images sensed by the respective sensor-chip carrier matrix can form a stereo image pair .

In another useful application, the images sensed by the respective sensor-chip carrier matrix can be stitched together to form a panoramic image. The sensed image may include partially overlapping scene information. This overlap allows overlapping images to be correctly combined and non-overlapping scene parts used to increase the combined image size.

By using two integrated imaging devices connected by a communication line, the integrated imaging device for displaying images while capturing scene images can be used in traditional two-dimensional video conferencing systems. The captured image of the first observer on one device can be communicated to the display of other devices observed by the second observer, and vice versa.

Referring to FIG. 12, in this arrangement of the imaging device, two different perspective images forming a stereoscopic image pair of the observer can be captured by the image sensor in each display. The two images are communicated to the remote imaging display device and presented alternately. The observer wears active switching glasses, which allow one of the two images of the stereoscopic image pair to be detected by one eye and the other of the two images by the other eye. In another embodiment, when each image of the stereoscopic image pair is presented by a display related to the lens body so as to emit light to a separate eye, the lenticular lens may be located on the pixel of the imaging device to provide 3D vision without wearing glasses. Therefore, the present invention can be effectively used in 3D displays and video conferencing systems.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the image display and sensing device includes a selected design viewing distance 74. The first imaging lens array 45A related to the first sensor-wafer carrier matrix 25A has a plurality of imaging lenses 42C, and each imaging lens 42C has a first optical axis 46A. The second imaging lens array 45B related to the second sensor-wafer carrier matrix 25B has a plurality of imaging lenses 42D, and each imaging lens 42D has a second optical axis 46B. The respective optical axis of each imaging lens is preferably aligned in the corresponding sensor-wafer mounter matrix to precisely correspond to an image sensor array; for example, each sensor wafer mounter has its own imaging lens. This is beneficial to reduce the interference between the scattered sensor-wafer carrier matrix.

The first optical axis 45A and the second optical axis 46B intersect in front of the display at an observation distance 74, which is preferably between 2 and 20 feet (0.6096m-6.096m). The intersection distance is the design viewing distance 74 of the display. With this arrangement, the generated stereo image pair will simulate the convergence of the user's eyes at the object plane, that is, at the design observation distance of the display. Different lenses can use different image sensor arrays to form multiple stereo pairs.

Referring again to FIG. 11, in another embodiment, the image sensor array (not shown) corresponding to the first sensor wafer mounter 20B in the first sensor-wafer mounter matrix 25A The imaging lens and the imaging lens corresponding to the image sensor array (not shown) of the second sensor wafer carrier 20C in the second sensor-wafer carrier matrix 25B may have different focal lengths. The difference of these focal lengths allows a sensor-chip carrier matrix 25A for focus sensing of a relatively close scene and another sensor-chip carrier matrix 25B for focus sensing of a relatively distant scene.

Referring to Fig. 13, in one embodiment, the first sensor-wafer carrier matrix 25A has more sensor wafer carriers than the second sensor-wafer carrier matrix 25B, which is higher than the others. A higher resolution to sense a scene. The number of sensor wafer holders 20C for controlling the pixels 30 between the pixel control wafer holders 20A on the substrate 10 is greater than the number of sensor wafer holders 20B.

Referring to Figure 9, in one embodiment, the imaging lens 42A corresponding to the first sensor-wafer carrier matrix (such as 25A, Figure 10) corresponds to the second sensor-wafer carrier matrix (E.g. 25B, Fig. 10) The imaging lens 42B has a narrower viewing angle.

In another embodiment, the sensor chip carrier can sample the scene at different time rates, for example, by using an image sensor array at different frequencies to obtain scene images, so that the first sensor-chip carrier matrix It has a first image sampling rate and the second sensor-chip mounter matrix has a second image sampling rate different from the first image sampling rate. For example, this is very useful in scenes with rapidly changing parts (such as spatial distribution areas) and relatively static parts. For example, in a scene with a high degree of gesture information, such as sign language translation, human hands, fingers, and faces change rapidly in the scene, and the background changes slowly. By capturing the rapidly changing part of the scene at a faster image sampling rate than the slowly changing part, compared to sampling the entire scene at a faster image sampling rate, the bandwidth is reduced, but the fidelity of important information in the scene is protected .

In another embodiment of the present invention, for example, as shown in FIG. 10, a sensor wafer carrier group is provided, and the sensor wafer carrier is arranged in horizontal rows or vertical columns in each group to form sensors -The wafer carrier matrix 25A, 25B, in which each image sensor array (not shown) senses different frequencies of light to generate frames of different colors of multi-color images. In this arrangement, it is useful to scatter the sensor-wafer carrier matrices 25A, 25B in a horizontal or vertical direction so that, as far as possible, the sensor-wafer carrier matrix 25A, 25B provides a similar scene perspective. . Figure 10 illustrates two spread sensor-wafer carrier matrices 25A, 25B. However, more than two sensor-chip carrier matrices can be used to obtain the color plane (not shown) of the full-color image. For example, compared to the other two of the red, green and blue sensor-chip mounter matrix, the red sensor-wafer mounter matrix can be more sensitive to red light, and the green sensor-wafer mount The sensor matrix can be more sensitive to green light, and the blue sensor-chip carrier matrix can be more sensitive to blue light. "Red", "green" and "blue" can be defined in various ways known in the art. For example, "red" can mean having X as its highest CIE The light of the 1931 tristimulus color (such as Y or Z greater than it), "green" refers to the light with the highest Y, and "blue" refers to the light with the highest Z. Alternatively, "red" refers to light with a dominant wavelength greater than 570nm, "blue" is less than 490nm and "green" is between the above two.

The imaging lens of the green sensor-wafer mounter matrix may have a narrower viewing angle than the imaging lens of the red or blue sensor-wafer mounter matrix, or the green sensor-wafer mounter matrix can have a narrower viewing angle. The number of sensor wafer carriers can be greater than the number of wafer carriers in the red or blue sensor-wafer carrier matrix. In one embodiment, these features can be used together. The green sensor-each image sensor array in the wafer mounter provides a high-resolution green frame of a small scene area, and the red and blue sensors-each image sensor in the wafer mounter matrix Provides a low-resolution red or blue frame for a large scene area.

In various embodiments, these two features can be used independently. In one embodiment, the number of sensor wafer carriers in the green sensor-wafer carrier matrix is the same as the number of sensor wafer carriers in the red and blue sensor-wafer carrier matrix, respectively. The number is the same, but each image sensor array in the green sensor-chip mounter provides a high-resolution green frame of a small scene area, and each of the red and blue sensors-chip mounter matrix The image sensor provides a low-resolution red or blue frame of a large scene area. In another embodiment, the number of sensor wafer holders in the green sensor-wafer holder matrix is greater than that of the red and blue sensor- wafer holders matrix, respectively Each image sensor array in the red, green, and blue sensor-chip mounter matrix provides a respective frame of the scene area of the same size as each other image sensor array. Using any feature or using these features together, compared to using the same number and viewing angle of sensor wafer holders in all three-color arrays, provides improved resolution of brightness details at reduced bandwidth costs (which is compared with Green light is the closest).

In another embodiment, four horizontal rows and four vertical columns of sensor wafer holders can form a broadband sensor- wafer holder matrix. The sensor wafer carrier of the wideband sensor-chip carrier matrix can be interspersed with the sensor wafer carrier of the red, green and blue sensor-chip carrier matrix, and it can be used for broadband (With two or more spectral peaks) or white light sensitive. In this case, the imaging lens of the broadband sensor-wafer mounter matrix has a different viewing angle from the imaging lens of the red, green, and blue sensor-wafer mounter matrix, and the broadband sensor-wafer mount The number of sensor wafer carriers in the carrier matrix is different from the number of wafer carriers in the red, green and blue sensor-wafer carrier matrix.

In another embodiment, as illustrated in FIGS. 8 and 9, a first imaging lens 42A having a first focal length 7A is provided in the first sensor wafer carrier 20B in the first image sensor array 23A The second imaging lens 42B with the second focal length 7B is provided on the second image sensor array 23B in the second sensor wafer carrier 20C. The sensor wafer carrier, imaging lens, and image sensor array themselves can form an array. In this embodiment, a circuit is provided for each pixel to determine the relative definition of the image data captured by the first image sensor array 23A and the image data captured by the second image sensor array 23B, and The relative resolution is then used to determine the relative distance of one or more objects captured by each sensor-chip carrier matrix.

For example, if the first focal length 7A is smaller than the second focal length 7B, and the image data captured by the first image sensor array 23A in the first scene area 72A of the image is determined to be better than that captured by the second image sensor array 23B The captured image data is clearer, and the object in the scene area 72A of the image is closer to the distance of the first focal length 7A than the second focal length 7B. In the second scene area 72B of the same image, if the image data captured by the second image sensor array 23B is clearer than the corresponding image data captured by the first image sensor array 23A, the second The object in the scene area 72B is closer to the distance of the second focal length 7B than the first focal length 7A, and therefore farther than the object in the first scene area 72A of the image.

Additional lenses with additional focal lengths can be used to further differentiate the distance within the scene. As shown in Fig. 9, different lenses 42A, 42B can be used for each image sensor array 23A, 23B ( (Not shown), or as shown in Figure 1, a single lens 42 can be used for the image sensor array 23 in the multiple wafer carrier 20 in a particular sensor-wafer carrier matrix.

In another example, referring again to Figure 8, the relative sharpness can be used to approximate the distance to the object in the image area. That is, the relative width of the edges captured by the first and second image sensor arrays 23A and 23B can be used to approximate the distance between the focal lengths 7A and 7B. For example, in the second sensor chip carrier 20C, the image sensor array 20B is used to capture an image of an object in a region with an edge that is 1/3 of the width of the distance between the first focal length 7A and the second focal length 7B. The image captured by the image sensor array 23A on the first sensor chip carrier 20B has a width of 3/4 of the distance between the first focal length 7A and the second focal length 7B.

The present invention can be used in a device with a basic structure of multiple pixels. In particular, the present invention can be used in LED devices, organic or inorganic, and is particularly useful in information display devices. In a preferred embodiment, the present invention is used in the disclosed flat panel OLED device composed of small molecule or polymer OLED, but is not limited to US Patent No. 4,769,292 and US Patent No. 5,061,569. Inorganic devices, for example, use quantum dots formed in a polycrystalline semiconductor matrix (as described in US Patent No. 2007/0057263), and use organic or inorganic charge control layers, or hybrid organic/inorganic devices may be used. Various combinations and variations of organic or inorganic light-emitting displays can be used to fabricate the device, including active matrix displays with top emitter structures.

In addition, the display device may be a traditional two-dimensional display or a three-dimensional display including a lens for imaging light-emitting elements to different positions in the space, for example, in the U.S. Patent Application No. No. 12/608,409. In this type of embodiment, the lens used for imaging the light-emitting element may be formed similar to that of the imaging lens 42. These lenses for imaging on the light-emitting element may be formed on the same substrate as the imaging lens 42 and spaced apart from each other and bonded to the device side 9 of the display substrate 10.

The present invention has been described in detail with specific reference to its specific preferred embodiments. It is understandable that any changes and modifications related to the present invention should still be included in the spirit and scope of the present invention.

<p>6A, 6B. . . Emitted light</p><p>7A, 7B. . . focal length</p><p>8A, 8B. . . Image light</p><p>9. . . Display substrate device side</p><p>10. . . Display substrate</p><p>11. . . Display area</p><p>12A, 12B. . . Control electrode</p><p>14. . . Luminescent material layer</p><p>16. . . Common transparent electrode</p><p>18. . . Planarization and insulation layer</p><p>20. . . Wafer carrier</p><p>20A. . . Pixel control wafer carrier</p><p>20B. . . Sensor chip carrier</p><p>20C. . . Sensor chip carrier</p><p>twenty two. . . Image sensor components</p><p>twenty three. . . Image sensor array</p><p>23A, 23B. . . Image sensor array</p><p>twenty four. . . Color filter</p><p>25A, 25B. . . Sensor-chip carrier matrix</p><p>26. . . Wafer carrier connection pad</p><p>26R. . . Red pixel connection pad</p><p>26G. . . Green pixel connection pad</p><p>26B. . . Blue pixel connection pad</p><p>26W. . . White pixel connection pad</p><p>28. . . Wafer carrier substrate</p><p>30. . . Pixel</p><p>32. . . Connection line</p><p>40. . . transparent lid</p><p>41A. . . Top side</p><p>41B. . . Bottom side</p><p>42, 42A, 42B, 42C, 42D. . . Imaging lens</p><p>43. . . Micro lens</p><p>44. . . Lens film</p><p>45A, 45B. . . Imaging lens array</p><p>46A, 46B. . . Optical axis</p><p>50. . . Pixel control circuit</p><p>52. . . Image sensor circuit</p><p>60. . . Controller</p><p>62. . . Control circuit</p><p>72A, 72B. . . Scene area</p><p>74. . . Observation distance</p>

Figure 1 is a cross-sectional view of an integrated capture and display device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of an integrated capture and display device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 3 is a top view of the integrated capture and display device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 4 is another top view of the integrated capture and display device according to the embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of a cover combined with a lens element used for an integrated capture and display device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 6 is a partial schematic illustration of the layout of pixels and wafer carriers according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 7 is a cross-sectional view of an integrated capture and display device according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 8 is an illustration of a cross-sectional view of an observer and an integrated capture and display device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 9 is a simplified cross-sectional view of an integrated capture and display device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a top view of a pixel array, a pixel control chip carrier array, and two offset sensor-chip carrier matrixes according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a top view of a pixel array, a pixel control chip carrier array, and two offset sensor-chip carrier matrixes according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 12 is a cross-sectional view of a substrate with two sensor wafer carriers and a cover with an imaging lens according to an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 13 is a top view of a pixel array, a pixel control wafer mounter array, and two offset sensor-wafer mounter arrays according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Because of the large range of layer thicknesses in the drawings, the drawings are not to scale.