The divisional application is based on the Chinese patent application with the application number of 201510824247.X, the application date of 2015 being 11/24/2015, and the name of the invention being 'a metal shell, a manufacturing method and an electronic device'.
Background
An antenna is an essential component of electronic devices, and is an important wireless device for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves when the electronic devices communicate with a base station. When the electronic device transmits signals, the antenna is responsible for converting the electric signals into electromagnetic waves to be radiated; meanwhile, the received electromagnetic waves can be timely converted into electric signals and transmitted to a circuit board in the electronic device.
At present, some electronic devices (such as mobile phones) adopt all-metal shells, except a front screen, the side faces and the back faces of the whole device are made of metal, so that the metal texture of the whole device is sufficient, the appearance expressive force is greatly enhanced, the structural strength can be enhanced to a great extent, but the design of the metal shells also influences the capability of an antenna for transmitting and receiving communication signals to a great extent. In order to avoid the influence of the metal shell on the antenna, at present, an antenna broken joint is generally arranged at the antenna setting position, and then non-metal materials such as plastic are injected into the antenna broken joint for connection, so that the better antenna receiving and transmitting performance can be achieved, but the plastic is adopted to disconnect the metal, the appearance effect of a product can be influenced, the fineness of the appearance of the product is reduced, and the user experience is influenced.
As shown in fig. 1A, which is a schematic structural diagram of a mobile phone housing in the prior art, an antenna seam 100 of the mobile phone housing is connected by a non-metallic material 200; FIG. 1B is an enlarged view of the antenna break in FIG. 1A; FIG. 1C is a cross-sectional view taken along line A1-A2 of FIG. 1B.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention provides a metal shell, a manufacturing method and an electronic device, which are used for improving the appearance aesthetic feeling of the metal shell and avoiding shielding of antenna signals by the metal shell.
In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a method for manufacturing a metal shell, including: forming an antenna broken seam on the metal shell;
injecting and filling non-metal materials into the antenna broken seam;
removing a preset thickness of the non-metal material in the antenna broken joint, wherein the preset thickness is smaller than the depth of the antenna broken joint;
and evaporating a metal layer on the non-metal material with the removed preset thickness.
In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a metal housing, which includes an antenna broken joint, a non-metal material is filled in the antenna broken joint through injection molding, a metal layer is disposed above the non-metal material in the antenna broken joint, and a thickness of the non-metal material is smaller than a depth of the antenna broken joint.
In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides an electronic device, including the metal housing according to any embodiment of the present invention.
The invention sets the antenna break on the metal shell; injecting and filling non-metal materials into the antenna broken seam; removing a preset thickness of the non-metal material in the antenna broken joint, wherein the preset thickness is smaller than the depth of the antenna broken joint; and evaporating a metal layer on the non-metal material with the removed preset thickness. The method can enable the metal shell to achieve the effect of full metal appearance while having good antenna receiving and transmitting performance, improves appearance fineness and appearance expressive force of the metal shell, and improves user experience.
Detailed Description
The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples. It is to be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not limiting of the invention. It should be further noted that, for the convenience of description, only some of the structures related to the present invention are shown in the drawings, not all of the structures.
Example one
Fig. 2A is a flowchart of a method for manufacturing a metal shell according to an embodiment of the present invention, and fig. 2B to fig. 2E are cross-sectional views of the metal shell corresponding to steps of the method according to the embodiment of the present invention. The method specifically comprises the following steps:
step 110, forming an antenna broken seam on the metal shell;
referring to fig. 2B, an antenna break 10 is opened on the metal case 1. Specifically, since the antenna is disposed in the electronic device having the metal housing 1, when the metal housing 1 is disposed, the antenna slot 10 needs to be formed on the metal housing 1, so that the antenna can better receive and transmit the communication signal.
Step 120, injecting plastic filling into the antenna broken seam to fill with non-metallic materials;
referring to fig. 2C, the antenna slot 10 is filled with a non-metallic material 20 by injection molding. Specifically, the metal shell 1 provided with the antenna gap 10 is filled with the non-metal material 20 by injection molding in the antenna gap 10. The non-metal material 20 may be plastic or other material that can be used for injection molding.
Step 130, removing a preset thickness of the non-metallic material in the antenna broken seam, wherein the preset thickness is smaller than the depth of the antenna broken seam;
referring to fig. 2D, after the non-metallic material 20 in the antenna gap 10 is removed by a predetermined thickness, a part of the space in the antenna gap 10 is not filled. It should be noted that the preset thickness needs to be smaller than the depth of the antenna slot 10, that is, the non-metallic material 20 filled by injection in the antenna slot 10 cannot be removed completely, and in addition, the non-metallic material 20 is removed on the outer surface side of the metal shell 1.
And 140, evaporating a metal layer on the non-metal material with the removed preset thickness.
Referring to fig. 2E, after a predetermined thickness is removed from the non-metallic material 20 of the antenna slot 10, a metal layer 30 is deposited on one side of the outer surface of the metal housing. After the non-metallic material 20 of the predetermined thickness of the antenna break 10 is removed, the metal layer 30 is deposited on the non-metallic material 20, so that the surface of the metal housing 1 has a fine appearance and an appearance effect of all metals can be obtained.
According to the technical scheme of the embodiment, the metal shell is provided with the antenna broken seam; injecting and filling non-metal materials into the antenna broken seam; removing a preset thickness of the non-metal material in the antenna broken joint, wherein the preset thickness is smaller than the depth of the antenna broken joint; and evaporating a metal layer on the non-metal material with the removed preset thickness. The method can enable the metal shell to achieve the effect of full metal appearance while having good antenna receiving and transmitting performance, improves appearance fineness and appearance expressive force of the metal shell, and improves user experience.
On the basis of the above scheme, further, step 130: removing the non-metal material 20 in the antenna broken joint 10 by a preset thickness, preferably using a laser etching process, that is, removing the non-metal material 20 in the antenna broken joint 10 by the preset thickness through the laser etching process. The laser etching process has high precision which can reach 1-2 um.
On the basis of the above embodiment, the preset thickness of the non-metal material 20 is preferably 2-20um, for example, the preset thickness can be set to 15 um.
Further, the thickness of the metal layer 30 evaporated on the non-metal material 20 removed by the predetermined thickness is preferably the same as the predetermined thickness of the non-metal material 20 removed. The advantage of setting up like this can make the surface of metal casing relatively smooth, and metal level 30 is flush with metal casing 1 outward appearance face, promotes user experience.
When the metal casing 1 is made of an aluminum alloy material, metal aluminum can be used as the material of the metal layer 30.
Preferably, the material of the metal layer 30 is the same as that of the metal housing 1. The advantage of setting up like this is, the material of metal level 30 is the same with metal casing 1's material, and the colour of metal casing 1 who obtains is unanimous, can obtain like this that metal casing 1's outward appearance is the outward appearance effect of all metals, increases metal casing 1's feel, promotes user experience.
Preferably, the material of the metal shell 1 is aluminum alloy or stainless steel.
On the basis of the above embodiment, optionally, the evaporation environment for removing the metal layer 30 evaporated on the non-metal material 20 with the preset thickness is vacuum. The advantage of this arrangement is that the metal casing 1 obtained by evaporating the metal layer 30 in a vacuum environment has a good metallic gloss.
Further, after removing the metal layer 30 deposited on the non-metal material 20 with the preset thickness, the method further includes: and carrying out anodic oxidation treatment on the metal shell 1.
Specifically, the outer surface of the metal shell 1 may be anodized after the metal layer 30 is vapor-deposited on the non-metallic material 20, and the surface hardness of the metal shell 1 may be enhanced by the anodization, so that the metal shell 1 may have more wear resistance and the appearance fineness and appearance expressiveness of the metal shell 1 may be improved.
Example two
Fig. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a metal housing according to a second embodiment of the present invention, the metal housing in this embodiment is manufactured by the method according to the first embodiment, the metal housing 1 includes an antenna slot 10, a non-metal material 20 is filled into the antenna slot 10 by injection molding, a metal layer 30 is disposed above the non-metal material 20 in the antenna slot 10, and the thickness of the non-metal material 20 is smaller than the depth of the antenna slot 10.
The technical scheme of this embodiment provides a metal casing, and this metal casing includes the antenna crack, it has non-metallic material to mould plastics in the antenna crack and fill, non-metallic material top in the antenna crack is provided with the metal level, non-metallic material's thickness is less than the degree of depth of antenna crack. This metal casing can obtain the effect of full metal outward appearance when realizing better antenna reception and transmitting performance, has improved metal casing's outward appearance fineness and outward appearance expressive force, promotes user experience.
Preferably, the sum of the thickness of the metal layer 30 and the thickness of the non-metallic material 20 is equal to the depth of the antenna slot 10.
Preferably, the material of the metal layer 30 is the same as that of the metal housing 1.
Further, the metal shell 1 is made of aluminum alloy or stainless steel.
EXAMPLE III
The third embodiment of the invention provides an electronic device, and the electronic device of the embodiment comprises the metal shell of the second embodiment. Since the electronic device described in this embodiment includes the metal housing, the technical effect thereof is similar to that of the metal housing, and thus the electronic device has the same beneficial effect as the metal housing, and the details are not repeated herein. The electronic device provided by the embodiment of the invention can also comprise other circuits and devices for supporting the normal operation of the electronic device. The electronic device may be a mobile phone or a tablet computer.
It is to be noted that the foregoing is only illustrative of the preferred embodiments of the present invention and the technical principles employed. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the particular embodiments described herein, but is capable of various obvious changes, rearrangements and substitutions as will now become apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention. Therefore, although the present invention has been described in greater detail by the above embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and may include other equivalent embodiments without departing from the spirit of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is determined by the scope of the appended claims.