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AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorsMinoru Ito, Nobuo Konda
Estimating the term…
A plurality of liquid crystal display cells in a test unit are driven to display a series of test image patterns. When some of the liquid crystal display cells are judged to function poorly or completely good, they are controlled to display a predetermined image pattern, so that an inspection person can stop further testing them and focus testing on other liquid crystal display cells. Where some of the other liquid crystal display cells are then judged to function poorly or completely good, they are controlled to display the same pattern as such a predetermined image pattern. Thus, since the inspector can test such liquid crystal display cells as required to check, the testing efficiency is significantly improved.
A method of testing liquid crystal display cells, comprising the steps of:
A method of testing liquid crystal display cells, comprising the steps of:
A liquid crystal display cell testing apparatus comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
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Details: repairing; Testing
Optical devices or arrangements for the control of light by modification of
Term end not estimated
This invention relates to a method of testing liquid crystal display cells, and an apparatus for the same.
Recently, the production of liquid crystal display (LCD) cells with a diagonal length around 5 cm has increased as mobile phones have come into wide use and their businesses expanded. The LCD cells of this sort are provided with a thin film transistor (TFT) driving system to comply with high resolution requirement.
Each LCD cell used for mobile phones or compact information terminals is around 5 cm in diagonal length, and a lot of the cells are formed on a mother glass substrate. As such, more of these cells may be cut out of a mother glass substrate than cells that are used for ordinary personal computers. More than 90 of the 5 cm cells may be cut out of a 400 mm×500 mm mother glass substrate, as opposed to 4 cells with a diagonal length around 25 cm.
A more complete appreciation of the present invention and many of the attendant advantages thereof will be readily obtained as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 schematically shows an LCD cell testing apparatus of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of a test unit of LCD cells of the invention;
An LCD cell testing apparatus of an embodiment according to the present invention will be explained below with reference to the attached drawings.
LCD cells subjected to test are described to begin with. A test unit 3 includes a plurality of the LCD cells 1 disposed in parallel in a line as shown in FIG. 2. The LCD cells are connected to outer lead bonding pads 2 to which driving control signals are supplied. A serial identification (ID) number is put on the unit 3 of the LCD cells 1. The ID number is preferably recognizable as an image, such as a numerical code representation.
FIG. 1 schematically shows an embodiment of an LCD cell testing apparatus according to the present invention and FIG. 3 is its block diagram. The LCD cell testing apparatus 10 includes an inspection system 11, a control system 12 and an input system 16. The inspection system 11 receives and inspects the test unit 3 of the LCD cells 1. The control system 15 provides control signals to the inspection system 11. The input system 16 inputs testing results to the control system as will be explained below in detail. The unit 3 of the LCD cells 1 is loaded into the LCD cell testing apparatus 10 to set display surfaces of the unit 3 of the LCD cells on a front panel of the testing apparatus 10 so that an inspector can make direct, visual observations of them.