Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published two display related patent applications from Apple. The first covers micro-LED and the second covers "Ambient Light Sensors and Emissive Displays."

Micro-LED Displays

It was big news when Apple acquired LuxVue in 2014, a leader in micro-LED technology. Since that time there have been a few patents and rumors about Apple adopting mini-LED but not much on micro-LED which is a vastly superior display.

Prior to today's patent application, the latest patent report regarding micro-LED was titled "Apple is working on Thinner next-gen micro-LED Displays with Integrated Solar Cells, Multiple Display Devices and much more" that we posted on October 8th.  Other patents on micro-LED could be found here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05.

Today's patent application was actually covered by Patently Apple back in August 2019. Apple doesn't list this patent because it was discovered as a patent filing by Apple in Europe.

Apple states that it has been proposed to integrate emissive inorganic semiconductor-based micro LEDs into displays. More specifically, it has been proposed to transfer individual micro LEDs from carrier substrates to a display substrate utilizing an array of electrostatic transfer heads.  

Apple's invention covers embodiments that describe light emitting structures and methods of forming light emitting structures. In an embodiment, a method of forming a light emitting structure includes forming one or more pluralities of LED coupons on one or more corresponding temporary substrates, transferring the one or more pluralities of LED coupons to a carrier substrate, patterning the one or more pluralities of LED coupons into LED mesa structures, and transferring the LED mesa structures to a display substrate.  

In some embodiments, well structures may also be formed around the LED mesa structures prior to transferring to the display substrate. Additionally, hybrid bonding may be utilized for bonding to the display substrate. The processing sequences in accordance with embodiments may be used to form both monochromatic and full color displays.

Apple's patent FIG. 1A below covers a process flow and corresponding cross-sectional side view illustrations of a method of forming a light emitting structure. FIG. 1B includes a process flow of a method of forming a monochromatic light emitting structure.

Apple's patent FIG. 12A above is a schematic cross-sectional side view illustration of a transparent half-ball high-index lens over an LED; FIG. 12B is a schematic cross-sectional side view illustration of a transparent cone-shaped high-index lens over an LED; FIG. 18 is a schematic top view illustration of a micro LED in a well structure; FIGS. 19-20 are schematic cross-sectional side view illustrations of a micro LED in a well structure.

You could review our 2019 report on this here or check out Apple's U.S. patent application number 20200343230 that was published today by the U.S. Patent Office was filed back July 2020 with some original work contributing to this current patent filed in 2018. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.

Interestingly, no LuxVue engineers were listed on this patent. A few of Apple's engineers listed as inventors include Ronojoy Bose (Display Technologist); Xiaobin Xin (Technologist); Nate Lawrence (Data Scientist); John T. Leonard, Ph.D. (Senior Machine Learning Engineer); Dmitry Sizov (Senior Hardware Engineer) and more.

Devices with Ambient Light Sensors and Emissive Displays

In Apple's patent application 20200341512 published today by the U.S. Patent Office Apple states that it could be challenging to incorporate ambient light sensors into electronic devices. If care is not taken, an ambient light sensor may consume more space in an electronic device than desired or may occupy a location that affects the shape and size of the display.

Apple's invention covers a future electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels that display images for a user. The electronic device may have an ambient light sensor for gathering ambient light information.

More specifically, the ambient light sensor may be a color ambient light sensor that gathers color ambient light information and ambient light intensity information.

During operation, control circuitry in the electronic device may adjust the display based on information from the ambient light sensor. For example, the control circuitry may adjust display intensity based on ambient light intensity information and may adjust the color cast of images on the display based on ambient light color information.

Apple's patent FIG. 6 below is a diagram of an illustrative display showing how a subset of pixels that overlaps an ambient light sensor may be controlled independently from remaining pixels in an array of pixels.

To review more details of Apple's display patent, click here.