Patents by Inventor Wei H. Yao

Wei H. Yao has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 12340737
    Abstract: In a display characterized by regions with different pixel responses due, for example, to local pixel density variation, voltage-to-luminance matching may be non-universal. Therefore, in order to avoid visual artifacts that may hinder a desired visualization of displayed content, it may be advantageous to compensate the different gamma responses. In some cases, such as with electronic devices having a single pixel density across the display, optical calibration may be performed to determine voltage-to-luminance matching. However, in electronic devices with local pixel density variations, it may be disadvantageous to perform optical calibrations for each region with a different pixel density. Instead of using two distinct gamma curves which may include dedicated optical calibration, a global nonlinear scaler (GNLS) compensation may be applied.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2023
    Date of Patent: June 24, 2025
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Mario Miscuglio, Kingsuk Brahma, Jie Won Ryu, Shengkui Gao, Yuchi Che, Graeme M Williams, Yi Qiao, Wei H Yao, Jean-Pierre S Guillou
  • Patent number: 12333995
    Abstract: Embodiments herein provide various apparatuses and techniques to efficiently mitigate front-of-screen (FoS) artifacts that may occur due to voltage fluctuations due to alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) mechanisms that may occur in a variety of pixel types. In one embodiment, emission profile awareness circuitry may be implemented to mitigate for FoS artifacts due to DC mechanisms. Two-dimensional (2D) digital compensation circuitry may address the DC portion of the voltage fluctuations by accounting for an emission profile applied to content displayed on an electronic display. In some embodiments, the 2D digital compensation circuitry may compensate for the AC portion of the voltage fluctuations by duplicating the AC voltage fluctuations via voltage error subtraction circuitry and voltage error accumulation circuitry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 2024
    Date of Patent: June 17, 2025
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Hyunwoo Nho, Jie Won Ryu, Patrick R Cruce, Yao Shi, Nicolas Le Dortz, Wei Xiong, Hyunsoo Kim, Wei H Yao, Sun-Il Chang, Kingsuk Brahma, Ionut A Mirel, Mahesh B Chappalli, Ruicong Chen
  • Publication number: 20250181182
    Abstract: An electronic device may include a display. The display may be formed by an array of light-emitting diodes mounted to the surface of a substrate. The substrate may be a silicon substrate. Circuitry may be located in spaces between the light-emitting diodes. Circuitry may also be located on the rear surface of the silicon substrate and may be coupled to the array of light-emitting diodes using through-silicon vias. The circuitry may include integrated circuits and other components that are attached to the substrate and may include transistors and other circuitry formed within the silicon substrate. Touch sensor electrodes, light sensors, and other components may be located in the spaces between the light-emitting diodes. The substrate may be formed from a transparent material that allows image light to reach a lens and image sensor mounted below the substrate.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 7, 2025
    Publication date: June 5, 2025
    Inventors: Wei Chen, Steven P. Hotelling, John Z. Zhong, William C. Athas, Wei H. Yao
  • Publication number: 20250149010
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels. The device may have an array of components such as an array of light sensors for capturing fingerprints of a user through an array of corresponding transparent windows in the display. A capacitive touch sensor, proximity sensor, force sensor, or other sensor may be used by control circuitry in the device to monitor for the presence of a user's finger over the array of light sensors. In response, the control circuitry can direct the display to illuminate a subset of the pixels, thereby illuminating the user's finger and causing reflected light from the finger to illuminate the array of light sensors for a fingerprint capture operation. The display may have display driver circuitry that facilitates the momentary illumination of the subset of pixels with uniform flash data while image data is displayed in other portions of the display.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 9, 2025
    Publication date: May 8, 2025
    Inventors: Koorosh Aflatooni, Minhyuk Choi, Mohammad Ali Jangda, Sang Y. Youn, Yafei Bi, Jean-Pierre Guillou, Wei H. Yao
  • Patent number: 12254147
    Abstract: An electronic device may include a display. The display may be formed by an array of light-emitting diodes mounted to the surface of a substrate. The substrate may be a silicon substrate. Circuitry may be located in spaces between the light-emitting diodes. Circuitry may also be located on the rear surface of the silicon substrate and may be coupled to the array of light-emitting diodes using through-silicon vias. The circuitry may include integrated circuits and other components that are attached to the substrate and may include transistors and other circuitry formed within the silicon substrate. Touch sensor electrodes, light sensors, and other components may be located in the spaces between the light-emitting diodes. The substrate may be formed from a transparent material that allows image light to reach a lens and image sensor mounted below the substrate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 24, 2023
    Date of Patent: March 18, 2025
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wei Chen, Steven P. Hotelling, John Z. Zhong, William C. Athas, Wei H. Yao
  • Patent number: 12243465
    Abstract: To reduce image artifacts and non-uniformity associated with a display pixel of an electronic display, processing circuity may adjust a luminance value corresponding to a display pixel according to a per-pixel gain mask, a per-pixel anode mask, or both. To further correct for the non-uniformity, the processing circuitry may convert the luminance value to a digital code based on a curve associated with an anode on which the display pixel is located.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2023
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2025
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Sunmin Jang, Mahdi Farrokh Baroughi, Saif Choudhary, Hopil Bae, Gautam Agrawal, Ionut A Mirel, Hari P Paudel, Haitao Li, Wei H Yao, Mahesh B Chappalli, Young Don Bae
  • Patent number: 12198656
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels. The device may have an array of components such as an array of light sensors for capturing fingerprints of a user through an array of corresponding transparent windows in the display. A capacitive touch sensor, proximity sensor, force sensor, or other sensor may be used by control circuitry in the device to monitor for the presence of a user's finger over the array of light sensors. In response, the control circuitry can direct the display to illuminate a subset of the pixels, thereby illuminating the user's finger and causing reflected light from the finger to illuminate the array of light sensors for a fingerprint capture operation. The display may have display driver circuitry that facilitates the momentary illumination of the subset of pixels with uniform flash data while image data is displayed in other portions of the display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 24, 2023
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2025
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Koorosh Aflatooni, Minhyuk Choi, Mohammad Ali Jangda, Sang Y. Youn, Yafei Bi, Jean-Pierre Guillou, Wei H. Yao
  • Publication number: 20240428502
    Abstract: An electronic device may include a lenticular display. The lenticular display may have a lenticular lens film formed over an array of pixels. The lenticular lenses may be configured to enable stereoscopic viewing of the display such that a viewer perceives three-dimensional images. The display may render different content layers that present different classes of content. The different classes of content may have different characteristics. As an example, a first class of content may be static content whereas a second class of content may be dynamic content. The different characteristics of each class of content may be leveraged to use a hybrid approach for content processing. The hybrid content processing may take advantage of different layers needing to be updated at different frequencies and may take advantage of sparse content in some of the layers.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 2, 2024
    Publication date: December 26, 2024
    Inventors: Fu-Chung Huang, ByoungSuk Kim, Felipe Bacim De Araujo E Silva, Hao Chen, Igor Kozintsev, Pavel V Dudrenov, Ping-Yen Chou, Seung Wook Kim, Sheng Zhang, Victor H Yin, Wei H Yao, Wei Xiong, Yang Li, Yi Huang, Yi-Pai Huang, Justin A Meiners
  • Patent number: 12136394
    Abstract: An electronic device includes a display having multiple regions of pixels. Each pixel includes a diode that emits light based on an amount of current through the diode and a transistor that controls the amount of current flowing through the diode. The electronic device includes driver-integrated circuitry that reduces hysteresis in a first transistor of a first pixel of a region of pixels, settles a threshold voltage of the first transistor, applies a test voltage to the first transistor, and senses a current across the first transistor. The electronic device includes processing circuitry that determines a predetermined voltage based on the current and a predetermined current-voltage relationship determined at an initial temperature, determines a voltage difference between the test voltage and the predetermined voltage, and applies the predetermined voltage and the voltage difference to a second transistor of a second pixel of the region of pixels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 5, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Hyunwoo Nho, Myungjoon Choi, Hyunsoo Kim, Mohammad Ali Jangda, Jie Won Ryu, Shiping Shen, Kingsuk Brahma, Chaohao Wang, Wei H. Yao, Alex H. Pai
  • Publication number: 20240331611
    Abstract: Embodiments herein provide various apparatuses and techniques to efficiently mitigate front-of-screen (FoS) artifacts that may occur due to voltage fluctuations due to alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) mechanisms that may occur in a variety of pixel types. In one embodiment, emission profile awareness circuitry may be implemented to mitigate for FoS artifacts due to DC mechanisms. Two-dimensional (2D) digital compensation circuitry may address the DC portion of the voltage fluctuations by accounting for an emission profile applied to content displayed on an electronic display. In some embodiments, the 2D digital compensation circuitry may compensate for the AC portion of the voltage fluctuations by duplicating the AC voltage fluctuations via voltage error subtraction circuitry and voltage error accumulation circuitry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 5, 2024
    Publication date: October 3, 2024
    Inventors: Hyunwoo Nho, Jie Won Ryu, Patrick R. Cruce, Yao Shi, Nicolas Le Dortz, Wei Xiong, Hyunsoo Kim, Wei H. Yao, Sun-Il Chang, Kingsuk Brahma, Ionut A. Mirel, Mahesh B. Chappalli, Ruicong Chen
  • Publication number: 20240303768
    Abstract: An electronic device uses a multidimensional (e.g., 3D) scaler to process multiple-viewing-angle (e.g., 3D-aware) images by resampling each view image and processing image data of each view image according to a view map to change resolution or improve perceived image quality. After being processed, each view image of the multiple-viewing-angle image is used to rebuild a final processed multiple-viewing-angle (e.g., 3D-aware image) with all views for displaying on the electronic device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 28, 2024
    Publication date: September 12, 2024
    Inventors: Yang Li, ByoungSuk Kim, Fu-Chung Huang, Jun Qi, Sheng Zhang, Victor H. Yin, Wei H. Yao, Yi Huang, Yi-Pai Huang, Ping-Yen Chou
  • Publication number: 20240203332
    Abstract: In a display characterized by regions with different pixel responses due, for example, to local pixel density variation, voltage-to-luminance matching may be non-universal. Therefore, in order to avoid visual artifacts that may hinder a desired visualization of displayed content, it may be advantageous to compensate the different gamma responses. In some cases, such as with electronic devices having a single pixel density across the display, optical calibration may be performed to determine voltage-to-luminance matching. However, in electronic devices with local pixel density variations, it may be disadvantageous to perform optical calibrations for each region with a different pixel density. Instead of using two distinct gamma curves which may include dedicated optical calibration, a global nonlinear scaler (GNLS) compensation may be applied.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 15, 2023
    Publication date: June 20, 2024
    Inventors: Mario Miscuglio, Kingsuk Brahma, Jie Won Ryu, Shengkui Gao, Yuchi Che, Graeme M Williams, Yi Qiao, Wei H Yao, Jean-Pierre S Guillou
  • Patent number: 11978385
    Abstract: This disclosure provides various techniques for providing fine-grain digital and analog pixel compensation to account for voltage error across an electronic display. By employing a two-dimensional digital compensation and a local analog compensation, a fine-grain and robust pixel compensation scheme may be provided to the electronic display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Yao Shi, Wei H Yao, Hyunwoo Nho, Jie Won Ryu, Kingsuk Brahma, Li-Xuan Chuo, Hyunsoo Kim, Myungjoon Choi, Ce Zhang, Alex H Pai, Shengkui Gao, Rungrot Kitsomboonloha, Shatam Agarwal, Vehbi Calayir, Chaohao Wang, Steven N Hanna, Pei-En Chang
  • Patent number: 11972713
    Abstract: An electronic device may display image content via an electronic display by controlling light emission from display pixels of the electronic display. A processor of the electronic device may receive image data destined for a defective display pixel (e.g., dim pixel, dead pixel). The processor may convert a gray level of the image data into a luminance domain to generate a target luminance that would have been emitted by the defective display pixel had the display pixel not been defective. After selecting a compensation mask, the processor may distribute the target luminance of the defective display pixels to nearby non-defective pixels of the electronic display to conceal the presence of the defective display pixel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2022
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Hari P. Paudel, Chaohao Wang, Hopil Bae, Mahdi Farrokh Baroughi, Wei Chen, Wei H. Yao
  • Patent number: 11967291
    Abstract: A display may have a pixel array such as a liquid crystal pixel array. The pixel array may be illuminated by a backlight unit that includes an array of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The backlight unit may determine the type of content in the image data. The backlight unit may decide to prioritize either mitigating halo or mitigating clipping based on the type of content. The determination of the type of content in the image data may be used to determine the brightness values for the LEDs in the LED array. If the content is determined to be a first type of content, at least one given LED in the LED array may have a different brightness value than if the content is determined to be a second, different type of content. Classifying content in the image data may be useful in optimizing visible artifacts such as visible halo and clipping.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2023
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Mohammad Tofighi, Meng Cao, Pierre-Yves Emelie, Duane M Petrovich, Shuo Han, Zhendong Hong, Tobias Jung, Marc Albrecht, Jiulong Shan, Wei H Yao
  • Publication number: 20240054973
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels. The device may have an array of components such as an array of light sensors for capturing fingerprints of a user through an array of corresponding transparent windows in the display. A capacitive touch sensor, proximity sensor, force sensor, or other sensor may be used by control circuitry in the device to monitor for the presence of a user's finger over the array of light sensors. In response, the control circuitry can direct the display to illuminate a subset of the pixels, thereby illuminating the user's finger and causing reflected light from the finger to illuminate the array of light sensors for a fingerprint capture operation. The display may have display driver circuitry that facilitates the momentary illumination of the subset of pixels with uniform flash data while image data is displayed in other portions of the display.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 24, 2023
    Publication date: February 15, 2024
    Inventors: Koorosh Aflatooni, Minhyuk Choi, Mohammad Ali Jangda, Sang Y. Youn, Yafei Bi, Jean-Pierre Guillou, Wei H. Yao
  • Publication number: 20240013692
    Abstract: To reduce overall power consumption for an electronic display power management integrated circuit (PMIC), one of multiple electric power converters and/or electric power regulators may be selected based on an electrical load (e.g., due to the total brightness of the content displayed) on the electronic display at a given moment. In some embodiments, the PMIC may include a less efficient heavy load converter designed with high-current handling capability and a more efficient light load (e.g., low current) converter with lower current handling capability. A controller may dynamically select between the converters depending on a present load or an expected load on the electronic display.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2023
    Publication date: January 11, 2024
    Inventors: Jie Won Ryu, Ardra Singh, Arthur L. Spence, Christopher P. Tann, Chun Lu, Daniel J. Drusch, Hyunwoo Nho, Jongyup Lim, Kingsuk Brahma, Marc J. DeVincentis, Mohammad Ali Jangda, Paolo Sacchetto, Peter F. Holland, Shawn P. Hurley, Wei H. Yao, Yue Jack Chu, Zhe Hua
  • Patent number: 11842708
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display with an array of pixels. The device may have an array of components such as an array of light sensors for capturing fingerprints of a user through an array of corresponding transparent windows in the display. A capacitive touch sensor, proximity sensor, force sensor, or other sensor may be used by control circuitry in the device to monitor for the presence of a user's finger over the array of light sensors. In response, the control circuitry can direct the display to illuminate a subset of the pixels, thereby illuminating the user's finger and causing reflected light from the finger to illuminate the array of light sensors for a fingerprint capture operation. The display may have display driver circuitry that facilitates the momentary illumination of the subset of pixels with uniform flash data while image data is displayed in other portions of the display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2023
    Date of Patent: December 12, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Koorosh Aflatooni, Minhyuk Choi, Mohammad Ali Jangda, Sang Y. Youn, Yafei Bi, Jean-Pierre Guillou, Wei H. Yao
  • Publication number: 20230368718
    Abstract: To reduce image artifacts and non-uniformity associated with a display pixel of an electronic display, processing circuity may adjust a luminance value corresponding to a display pixel according to a per-pixel gain mask, a per-pixel anode mask, or both. To further correct for the non-uniformity, the processing circuitry may convert the luminance value to a digital code based on a curve associated with an anode on which the display pixel is located.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 6, 2023
    Publication date: November 16, 2023
    Inventors: Sunmin Jang, Mahdi Farrokh Baroughi, Saif Choudhary, Hopil Bae, Gautam Agrawal, Ionut A Mirel, Hari P Paudel, Haitao Li, Wei H Yao, Mahesh B Chappalli
  • Patent number: 11810534
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display layer for displaying images. An optical coupling layer having an input surface that receives light from the display panel may convey the light from the input surface to an output surface. The output surface may have different dimensions than the display layer and may have any desired shape. To account for the displacement of light between the active area and the outer surface of the optical coupling layer and to ensure the output image is perceived with the desired distortion, image data may be rendered for the output surface then modified to account for the distortion and displacement that will occur later when the image is transported by the optical coupling layer from the display active area to the output surface of the optical coupling layer. Image distortion control circuitry may modify the rendered image data based on a distortion map.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Yi Qiao, Jean-Pierre S. Guillou, Yingying Tang, Michael J. Brown, Paul C. Kelley, Tyler R. Kakuda, Hao Dong, Ying-Chih Wang, Chaohao Wang, Shaorui Yang, Wei H. Yao