Apple has filed for a patent (number 20220246082) that shows it wants to make its Mac, iPad, and iPhone display bezel-less (or at least appear that way). The patent filing is dubbed “hybrid architecture for zero-border display.”
About the patent filing
In the filing data, Apple notes that flat panel displays, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, are commonly used in a wide variety of electronic devices. These display panels typically provide a flat display in a relatively thin package. Such devices typically use less power than comparable display technologies, making them suitable for use in battery-powered devices or in other contexts where it is desirable to reduce power usage.
Electronic displays typically include a border around the display. This border may be utilized to conceal, for example, drive circuitry used to operate the display. However, Apple says that use of this border reduces the overall visible space available to display images. The tech giant is looking to implement a system that increases the overall usable space for a display by reducing the impact of borders around the display.
Summary of the patent finding
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “Hybrid architectures and method methods of operating a display panel are described. In an embodiment, row driver and pixel driver functions are combined in a group of backbone hybrid pixel driver chips, wherein global signal lines are distributed to the backbone hybrid pixel driver chips, where the global signals are manipulated and distributed to a row of pixel driver chips.
