Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – For electronic systems and devices
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-20
2002-05-21
Picard, Leo P. (Department: 2835)
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
For electronic systems and devices
C361S737000, C361S752000, C361S689000, C206S323000, C345S205000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06392881
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a portable electronic equipment which has an information storage function inside a body thereof and may be connected to an external terminal equipment such as a personal computer to enable display of required information on a display screen of the body.
BACKGROUND ART
Recently, a portable electronic equipment having a circuit substrate, a connector and a liquid crystal cell or the like has been in use in large numbers. In Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 63-72651, for instance, there is disclosed the technique of a portable electronic equipment in the prior art. A description will be given of its outline with reference to
FIGS. 15 and 16
in the following.
In a portable electronic equipment
100
, a connector
102
connected to an external data input device
101
such as a personal computer is mounted on the side of a case
106
. Also, a display section
107
and an operating section
110
composed of index, page and mode or like operation keys
108
and cursor operation keys
109
are provided on the surface of the case
106
.
Further, a storage section composed of a central processing unit (CPU)
103
, a random access memory (RAM)
104
and a read-only memory (ROM)
105
or the like and a display device such as a liquid crystal cell are incorporated in the case
106
.
Upon receipt of desired data from the external data input device
101
by connecting the external data input device
101
to the connector
102
of the portable electronic equipment
100
, this data is stored in the storage section through an input/output control section
111
. The data stored in the storage section is processed on the basis of an operating signal from the operating section
110
and is then displayed on the display section
107
through the input/output control section
111
.
However, this portable electronic equipment
100
is larger in size than a credit card and does not meet the requirements of “a PC card” of PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) standard type.
In this connection, a telephone directory electronic calculator card has been developed as a PC card of standard PCMCIA type and was patented on Oct. 15, 1996 in U.S.A. (Design Patent No. 374,661). This PC card
200
has an external appearance as shown in FIG.
17
and is combined with a personal computer having a PC card slot to enable reception of data from the personal computer.
The PC card
200
shown in
FIG. 17
has already come into the market from IBM Co., Inc. by the trade name of “Chip Card”. This PC card is mounted with a display
202
and a keyboard
203
on a body
201
within its limited surface space of a credit card size and also with a connector of PCMCIA type (not shown) and a CPU or the like serving as an operating function of a personal computer on the inside of the body
201
and uses two button batteries. In addition, this PC card is also mounted with a charging back-up battery capable of protecting data even in exchange of a battery for operation.
However, this PC card is mounted with the display and the keyboard or the like within the limited surface space of the credit card size as described above. Incidentally, although the keyboard having a plurality of keys embedded in the surface of the body is convenient in key inputting in case of retrieval in the outdoors or data inputting at a minimum in the place where a user has gone out, the area of the keyboard amounts to a large percentage in the limited area of the body, and the display is accordingly restricted to a narrow area, resulting in an occurrence of a problem that an information content visible at a time is reduced in the extreme.
Further, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-58275, there is disclosed a portable electronic equipment as a different instance of the portable electronic equipment having a circuit substrate, a connector and a liquid crystal cell or the like.
A description will now be given of this portable electronic equipment
100
with reference to a fragmentary sectional view of FIG.
18
.
The portable electronic equipment
100
includes a circuit substrate
101
and electric components
102
such as IC chips mounted on the circuit substrate
101
. The circuit substrate
101
and the electric components
102
are arranged between upper and lower outer metal plates
107
and are sealed up with a seal layer
103
.
This seal layer
103
has a plurality of (for instance, four) through holes
104
extending from the front and back surfaces to the circuit substrate
101
. A ground electrode
105
is arranged on the circuit substrate
101
at a position corresponding to the through hole
104
. Thus, the ground electrode
105
is communicated with the outside through this through hole
104
when the upper outer metal plate
107
is removed.
A coil type metal spring
106
is inserted into each through hole
104
provided in the seal layer
103
. When the outer metal plate
107
is stuck on both of the front surface (the upper surface) and the back surface (the lower surface) of the seal layer
103
, the metal spring
106
in each through hole
104
is contracted, and one end of each metal spring
106
presses the inside surface of the outer metal plate
107
. As a result, the circuit substrate
101
and the outer metal plates
107
are electrically connected together through the metal springs
106
, and the outer metal plates
107
are thus grounded. An electric charge is discharged from the circuit substrate
101
through the metal springs
106
.
On the other hand, a connector
109
is connected to one end of the circuit substrate
101
through a pair of metal pieces
108
. These metal pieces
108
are sealed up with the seal layer
103
. The thickness of the connector
109
is set to be equal to the thickness of the seal layer
103
.
According to the portable electronic equipment
100
shown in
FIG. 18
, since four through holes are provided in the seal layer for mounting the metal springs electrically connected to the ground terminals of the circuit substrate, and four metal springs are required, there is a need for more working steps, more part cost and more incorporating steps or the like, resulting in an increase in cost.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable electronic equipment, which is based on PCMCIA standard and enables display of more information content on one image screen by enlarging an area of a display within a limited space of a credit card size.
For attaining the above object, a portable electronic equipment according to the present invention comprises a case body composed of an upper cover having a display window, a lower cover and a frame arranged along the peripheral edges of the upper and lower covers facing each other to define an inside space, and inside components including a liquid crystal cell, a circuit substrate and a battery holder and housed in the inside space of the case body, wherein the liquid crystal cell is arranged at a position corresponding to the display window of the upper cover of the case body, the circuit substrate is bonded to a connector including a large number of signal terminals capable of being connected to a connector provided on an external equipment and is arranged on the liquid crystal cell one above the other in the case body, and the battery holder is arranged on one end of the circuit substrate.
According to the present invention, a large integrated circuit is mounted in the limited space to enable expansion of a processing function, and it is possible to increase a ratio of the area of a display to the surface area of the equipment body.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4862153 (1989-08-01), Nakatani et al.
patent: 5442470 (1995-08-01), Hashimoto
patent: 5548483 (1996-08-01), Feldman
patent: 5673180 (1997-09-01), Pernet
patent: 5751558 (1998-05-01), Gullicksrud et al.
patent: 5777610 (1998-07-01), Sugimoto et al.
patent: 5936600 (1999-08-01), Ohashi et al.
patent: 6049813 (2000-04-01), Danielson et al.
patent: 355023483 (1980-02-01), None
patent: 6
Citizen Watch Co. Ltd.
Datskovsky Michael
Picard Leo P.
Smith , Gambrell & Russell, LLP
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