Foldable display device and driving method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11275404-B2
Application number	US-202016935041-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 21, 2020
Priority date	Dec 10, 2019
Publication date	Mar 15, 2022
Grant date	Mar 15, 2022

Abstract

A foldable display device and a method of driving the foldable display device are provided. The foldable display device may include a first region, a second region, and a third region configured to bend along a folding axis between the first region and the second region. The foldable display device may include a display panel having a plurality of pixels; a touch sensor overlapping the third region and on an upper surface of the display panel; a first digitizer provided under the display panel to overlap the first region; and a second digitizer provided under the display panel to overlap the second region.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A foldable display device, comprising:
a display panel comprising a first region, a second region, a third region configured to bend along a folding axis between the first region and the second region, and pixels in the first region, the second region, and the third region;
a touch sensor overlapping the third region, and on an upper surface of the display panel;
a first digitizer under the display panel to overlap the first region; and
a second digitizer under the display panel to overlap the second region.

2. The foldable display device according to claim 1 , further comprising a shock absorber coupled to a lower surface of the display panel via an adhesive layer to protect the display panel.

3. The foldable display device according to claim 2 , wherein the shock absorber is between the display panel and at least one selected from among the first and second digitizers.

4. The foldable display device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a first shield electrode on a lower surface of the first digitizer to shield electromagnetic noise; and
a second shield electrode on a lower surface of the second digitizer to shield the electromagnetic noise.

5. The foldable display device according to claim 1 , wherein the first digitizer and the second digitizer are spaced apart from each other to not overlap the third region.

6. The foldable display device according to claim 1 , wherein the touch sensor overlaps the first region and the second region.

7. The foldable display device according to claim 1 , further comprising a touch controller configured to receive touch data from the touch sensor, the first digitizer, and the second digitizer, and to correct and output the received touch data.

8. The foldable display device according to claim 7 , further comprising a memory configured to store a matching table in which a match relationship between first touch data received from the touch sensor and second touch data received from the first digitizer or the second digitizer is set.

9. The foldable display device according to claim 8 , wherein the touch controller comprises:
a touch data selector configured to select either the first touch data or the second touch data according to a set reference; and
a touch data corrector configured to correct the first touch data transmitted from the touch data selector, with reference to the matching table.

10. The foldable display device according to claim 9 , wherein the touch data selector is configured to transmit the first touch data to the touch data corrector, if both the first touch data and the second touch data are received and a position coordinate of the first touch data corresponds to the third region.

11. The foldable display device according to claim 10 , wherein the touch data selector is configured to select the second touch data, if both the first touch data and the second touch data are received and the position coordinate of the first touch data corresponds to the first region or the second region.

12. The foldable display device according to claim 9 , wherein the touch data selector is configured to transmit the first touch data to the touch data corrector, if the second touch data is not received and the first touch data is received.

13. The foldable display device according to claim 9 , wherein the touch data corrector is configured to correct a pen pressure level of the first touch data at a pen pressure level of the second touch data matched with a pen pressure level of the first touch data, with reference to the matching table.

14. The foldable display device according to claim 9 , wherein the touch data corrector is configured to correct a position coordinate of the first touch data by a position coordinate difference between the first touch data and the second touch data, with reference to the matching table.

15. A method of driving a foldable display device, the display device including a first region, a second region, and a third region configured to bend along a folding axis between the first region and the second region, the method comprising:
acquiring at least one selected from among first touch data and second touch data; and
outputting one of corrected first touch data, corrected from the first touch data, and the second touch data, according to a set reference,
wherein the first touch data is data collected from a touch sensor on an upper surface of a display panel of the display device, and
wherein the second touch data is data collected from at least one selected from among a first digitizer under the display panel to overlap the first region and a second digitizer under the display panel to overlap the second region.

16. The method according to claim 15 , wherein the outputting outputs the second touch data if both the first touch data and the second touch data are received and a position coordinate of the first touch data corresponds to the first region or the second region.

17. The method according to claim 16 , wherein the outputting comprises correcting the first touch data, if the position coordinate of the first touch data corresponds to the third region.

18. The method according to claim 17 , wherein the correcting the first touch data corrects a pen pressure level of the first touch data at a pen pressure level of the second touch data matched with the pen pressure level of the first touch data, with reference to a matching table.

19. The method according to claim 17 , wherein the correcting the first touch data corrects the position coordinate of the first touch data by a position coordinate difference between the first touch data and the second touch data, with reference to a matching table.

20. The method according to claim 15 , wherein the outputting outputs the corrected first touch data, if the first touch data is acquired and the second touch data is not acquired.

Assignees

• Samsung Display Co Ltd

Inventors

• Bae Jong Man
• Kim Jong Hwa
• Park Se Hun
• Park Chang Mo
• Joo So Yeon

Classifications

• G06F2203/04112

  Electrode mesh in capacitive digitiser: electrode for touch sensing is formed of a mesh of very fine, normally metallic, interconnected lines that are almost invisible to see. This provides a quite large but transparent electrode surface, without need for ITO or similar transparent conductive material · CPC title

• G06F2203/04107

  Shielding in digitiser, i.e. guard or shielding arrangements, mostly for capacitive touchscreens, e.g. driven shields, driven grounds · CPC title

• G06F2203/04102

  Flexible digitiser, i.e. constructional details for allowing the whole digitising part of a device to be flexed or rolled like a sheet of paper · CPC title

• G06F3/0446

  using a grid-like structure of electrodes in at least two directions, e.g. using row and column electrodes · CPC title

• G06F1/1643

  the display being associated to a digitizer, e.g. laptops that can be used as penpads (details related to the relative motion of the display enclosure with respect to the body enclosure, e.g. to move between laptop and tablet PC configuration G06F1/1615) · CPC title