JP2004185031A - Method and device for power consumption control over display unit, display system including the same device, and storage medium stored with program for realizing the method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide power consumption control which is free of unnatural variation in luminance even when data abruptly varying a load rate are inputted and capable of converging power consumption on a desired value. <P>SOLUTION: A load rate is calculated from data inputted to a display device (step 1002) and a load rate is calculated back from a current luminance value; when the difference between the both is larger than a threshold (steps 1100, 1006), a luminance value is calculated from the load rate (step 1008) and luminance is set to the value (step 1010). Then the luminance is controlled with a measured electric power value (steps 1012, 1014, 1016, 1018, 1020). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a display device, particularly a display device having a plasma display panel, and more particularly, a method and apparatus for controlling power consumption of a display device having an AC-driven plasma display panel, and such a power consumption control device. And a storage medium storing a program for implementing such a power consumption control method.

  The power consumption control of a display device, particularly a display device having an AC-driven plasma display panel (PDP), continuously monitors the power consumption that changes as the display data changes, and when the power consumption exceeds an upper limit value. This has been done by lowering the brightness of the entire screen and increasing the brightness when the power consumption falls below the lower limit.

  Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 6-332397 discloses that a display ratio is calculated by integrating a display signal given from outside during a predetermined period, particularly one frame period, and the screen brightness is set to a value corresponding to the display ratio. It is disclosed to perform control.

  According to the above-described first control method, when the display is switched from the full-light-out to the full-light-up, the luminance of the screen is controlled to the maximum just before that because the full-light-off is performed. The entire surface is lit in this state, and since the power consumption at this time is higher than the set value, the luminance must be reduced. At this time, if the speed at which the luminance is reduced is slow, the image state becomes gradually darker even when the input display data is not changed. In addition, when the speed is increased, it seems that flashing is performed for a moment, and in either case, a problem on an image occurs.

Since no feedback control is performed in the second control method, such a problem does not occur. However, since the feedback control is not used, there is a problem that power consumption when the display rate is the same varies due to variation between products.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to be able to control the power consumption to a desired value irrespective of the variation between products without any unnatural change in luminance even when the lighting state of the display changes abruptly. It is to provide power consumption control.

  According to the present invention, the screen load factor is calculated from the display data given to the display unit, the power consumption of the display unit is measured, and the luminance of the entire screen is calculated based on the calculated load factor and the measured power consumption. A method for controlling power consumption of a display unit including the steps of controlling is provided.

According to the present invention, a means for calculating a load factor of a screen from display data given to a display unit, a means for measuring power consumption of a display unit, and a screen based on a calculated load factor and measured power consumption A power consumption control device for a display unit, comprising: means for controlling overall brightness.
According to the present invention, the above power consumption control device, a plasma display panel, a drive circuit for driving the plasma display panel, and a control circuit for controlling the drive circuit based on a luminance value given from the power consumption control device A display system comprising the same is also provided.

  According to the present invention, there is also provided a storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to implement the above power consumption control method.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an AC-driven plasma display device as an example of a display device to which the present invention is applied.
The plasma display panel (PDP) 10 includes a large number of Y electrodes (scan electrodes) 12 parallel to each other, a large number of address electrodes 14 orthogonal to and parallel to the Y electrodes 12, and an X number of Y electrodes parallel to the Y electrodes. An electrode (common electrode) 16 is provided, and a display cell 18 is formed at the intersection of each address electrode 14 and the electrodes 12 and 16.

The drive circuit 20 of the PDP 10 includes a Y scan driver 22 for independently driving each of the Y electrodes 12, a Y driver 24 for simultaneously driving all the Y electrodes 12 via the Y scan driver 22, and all the X electrodes. A common driver 26 for simultaneously driving the electrodes 16 and an address driver 28 for independently controlling each address electrode 14 are provided. The voltage V _{S of the} sustain power supply is applied to the Y scan driver 22, the Y driver 24, and the common driver 26, and the voltage _{VA of the} address power supply is applied to the address driver 28.

  As is well known, an AC drive type PDP selectively applies a write pulse between the Y electrode 12 and the address electrode 14 in an address period to selectively accumulate electric charges in each display cell, and in the address period, In the subsequent sustain discharge period, an AC voltage pulse (sustain pulse) is applied between all the Y electrodes 12 and all the X electrodes 16 so that only the display cells in which the charges are accumulated during the address period emit light. . Therefore, the pattern of the address electrode 14 that is active when one of the Y electrodes 12 as a scanning line is active corresponds to the on / off pattern of the display cell along that scanning line, and the subsequent sustain discharge. The length of the period, that is, the number of sustain pulses corresponds to the brightness of the display cell that is emitting light.

The driver control unit 30 sequentially scans the Y electrodes 12 via the scan driver 22 during the address period, and operates between the Y electrodes 12 and the X electrodes 16 via the Y driver 24 and the common driver 26 during the sustain discharge period. To apply a sustain pulse. Data is sequentially input to the data converter 32 following the vertical synchronizing signal V _SYNC , and is stored in the frame memory 40. At this time, if the number of dots per screen and the number of screens per unit time of the input data do not match the operation specifications of the PDP 10, the data converter 32 appropriately converts the data and then stores the data in the frame memory 40. Is stored. Then, in the address period, the data converter 32 reads data line by line from the frame memory 40 in synchronization with the scanning of the Y electrode 12 and gives a display pattern on each scanning line to the address electrode 14 via the address driver 28.

The arithmetic control circuit 42 is configured by an MPU (microprocessor unit) incorporating an A / D converter, a ROM, and the like. The built-in ROM generates vertical synchronization signals V _SYNC 1 and V _SYNC 2 according to the operation specifications of the PDP 10 based on a vertical synchronization signal V _SYNC supplied from the outside, in addition to power consumption control described in detail later. In addition, a program for supplying the data converter 32 and the driver control unit 30 with each other is stored. The built-in A / D converter converts the analog value detected by the current / voltage detection circuit 43 into a digital value and supplies the digital value to the MPU. The A / D converter and the ROM may be externally attached to the MPU.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining one method for realizing an intermediate gradation level in an AC-driven PDP. One frame (corresponding to one screen) is divided into, for example, eight subfields. Each subfield includes an address period for selectively accumulating electric charge in each display cell according to display data, and a sustain discharge period for causing the display cell storing the electric charge to emit light. Subfield 1, subfield 2 ... Length of the sustain discharge period of the subfield 8, i.e., the ratio of the number of sustain pulses is 2 ^0: it has become 2 ¹ ... 2 ^7. In the ⁰ the ratio of length 2 address period of a subfield 1 of the sustain discharge period, 8 bit 0 of the lowest gradation data bits followed by electric charge is stored only in the display cell 1 The display cell emits light during the sustain period. Similarly, in the address period of subfield i + 1 (i = 1 to 7) in which the ratio of the length of the sustain discharge period is 2 ⁱ , charges are accumulated only in the display cell in which bit i of the grayscale data is 1. The display cell emits light in the subsequent sustain period. In this way, the gradation of each pixel can be set in 256 steps. As disclosed in JP-A-7-271325 and JP-A-9-31662, there are cases where a plurality of subfields of the same length exist and each subfield is not arranged in the order of the length. .

Setting of the luminance of the entire screen is realized by increasing or decreasing the number of sustain pulses according to the luminance setting value (hereinafter referred to as MCBC) while maintaining the ratio of the number of sustain pulses in each subfield as described above. The driver control unit 30 is provided with the number of sustain pulses of each subfield determined according to the MCBC.
FIG. 3 shows the configuration of the voltage / current detection circuit 43 (FIG. 1). V _S voltage detection circuit 44 and the I _S current detecting circuit 46 detects the respective voltages and currents of the sustain power supplied from V _S power supply 48 to the Y scan driver 22, Y driver 24 and common driver 26 (FIG. 1) . V _A voltage detection circuit 54 and the I _A current detection circuit 56 detects the respective voltages and current address power supplied from V _A power supply 58 address driver 28 (FIG. 1).

FIG. 4 is a timing chart of a write operation to the frame memory 40 (FIG. 1) and a read operation therefrom. The frame memory 40 includes a frame memory A and a frame memory B, each of which can store one frame of data. As shown in FIG. 4, when one is in the write mode (W mode) and the other is in the read mode (R mode), the modes are alternately switched in synchronization with _VSYNC , thereby enabling continuous data writing and writing. Reading is enabled. Focusing on one of the frame memories A and B, after conversion and writing of data for one frame are completed, data reading and display are performed in the next frame period. As described with reference to FIG. 2, one frame period starts with an address period. Therefore, if the luminance according to the load ratio (to be described later) of the screen to be displayed is completed during this address period, the sustain pulses of the number based on the calculated luminance are applied in the next sustain period. be able to. That is, even if there is a sudden change in the load factor, it is possible to change the luminance according to the load factor before it is displayed.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of power consumption control in the arithmetic and control circuit 42 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. This process is started by the V _SYNC interrupt, and first, the load data of the screen being displayed from the data converter 32, that is, the lighting rate (the ratio of the lit pixels) in each sub-frame or the lighting or extinguishing of each pixel in each sub-frame. When the data of light-on / light-off are fetched (step 1000), the lighting rate is calculated from the data, and the load ratio is calculated by taking the sum over all the sub-frames according to the following equation (step 1002). .

(Load ratio) = {(Lighting ratio) × (Brightness ratio)} × 100 (%) (1)
Here, the luminance ratio is a ratio of the number of sustain pulses of each subframe to the total number of sustain pulses. Therefore, when the gradation level of all the pixels is the highest (full lighting), the load ratio is 100%, and when the gradation level of all the pixels is the lowest (all off), the load ratio is 0%. . When the gradation levels of all the pixels are at the median value, or when the gradation levels of 50% of the pixels are the highest and the gradation levels of the remaining pixels are the lowest, the load factor is 50%.

Next, the amount of change in the load factor is calculated by taking the absolute value of the difference from the previous load factor (step 1004). If the amount of change exceeds a predetermined threshold, the load factor a ( %) To calculate the MCBC value.
MCBC = 256 (1-a / 100) (2)
According to the above equation, if the load factor is 100%, MCBC = 0 (lowest), if 50%, MCBC = 128, and if 0%, MCBC = 255 (highest). As an alternative to the above equation, the MCBC may become the highest value before the load factor becomes 0%, and the MCBC may become the highest value when the load factor is lower than that value. After changing the MCBC value according to the calculated value (step 1010), the process joins the process when the amount of change is equal to or smaller than the threshold in step 1006.

Next, the values of V _S , I _S , V _A , and I _A are fetched via the A / D converter, and the power consumption value is calculated by the following equation (step 1012).
Power _{= I S × V S + I} A × V A (3)
If the power consumption exceeds the preset upper limit (step 1014), the MCBC value is reduced by α (constant) (step 1016). If the power consumption is lower than the lower limit (step 1018), the MCBC value is set to β (constant). ) (Step 1020). Since I _A depends only on the display pattern without depending on the brightness, the following equation, I _S, may calculate the power consumption of only V _S.

Power consumption = I _S × V _S (3 ′)
The reason that the value of the load factor is not immediately reflected in the MCBC value and the MCBC is changed to a value determined from the load factor only when there is a change in the load factor that exceeds the threshold value is effective in the subsequent control by the power consumption value. In addition to the purpose of (1), it is to prevent a slight change in the load factor from being immediately reflected in the luminance and causing flicker.

  According to the first embodiment, there is a problem that the power consumption value cannot be controlled when a change in the load factor which is less than the threshold value but cannot be caught by the control based on the power consumption value occurs continuously. This point is improved in the second embodiment of the present invention shown in the flowchart of FIG. In the second embodiment, in step 1005, the amount of change in the load factor is integrated. At this time, integration is performed in consideration of the sign of the amount of change. In step 1006, it is determined whether or not the integrated value is equal to or greater than a threshold value. If the integrated value is equal to or greater than the threshold value, the integrated value is cleared (step 1007), and the MCBC value is calculated from the load factor. Change the MCBC to the value specified. Other processes are the same as those in FIG.

The integrated value of the variation in the embodiment of FIG. 6 is nothing less than the difference between the load factor at the start of the integration and the current load factor. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 7, if the first embodiment of FIG. 5 is modified such that the previous value of the load factor is not updated every time, and is updated only when the difference from the current value exceeds the threshold value (step 1009), FIG. A result equivalent to the sixth embodiment is obtained.
FIG. 8 is a flowchart of the power consumption control according to the third embodiment of the present invention. In the present embodiment, after the load factor is calculated (step 1002), the load factor is calculated backward from the current MCBC value by the inverse operation of equation (2) (step 1003). In step 1100, the difference between the current load factor and the load factor obtained by the back calculation, that is, the load factor that gives the current MCBC value, is calculated. If the difference is equal to or larger than the threshold value, the MCBC value is changed to the MCBC value calculated from the load factor. (Steps 1008 and 1010). Other processes are the same as those in FIG.

When comparing the processing shown in FIG. 8 with FIG. 7, in FIG. 7, the difference between the load factor when the change to the MCBC calculated from the load factor was last performed and the current load factor is compared with a threshold. On the other hand, in FIG. 8, the difference between the current MCBC value and the load factor obtained by back calculation is compared with a threshold value.
FIG. 9 is a modification of the process of FIG. In step 1102, the MCBC value is calculated from the current load factor. If the MCBC value is separated from the current MCBC by a threshold or more (steps 1104, 1006), the MCBC is changed to the calculated value (step 1010).

  According to the present invention, when display data for rapidly changing the load is received, the screen brightness is changed in advance to a value corresponding to the load factor before the display data is actually displayed. Can be prevented. In addition, when the power consumption at the luminance determined from the load factor is different from the target power consumption due to the variation between products, the power consumption can be made to converge to the target value by the control based on the power consumption measurement.

  When the power consumption at the brightness determined from the load factor is lower than the set power value, the video state becomes darker and then brighter. The picture becomes darker gradually. Comparing the two, the latter case is less noticeable when it is darker from a bright place, so it is desirable to set the luminance so that the power consumption at the luminance determined from the load factor is higher than the set power.

  As described above, according to the present invention, even when data for rapidly changing the lighting state of the display is input, there is no unnatural change in luminance, and even if there is variation between products, power consumption is reduced. A power consumption control that can converge to a desired value is provided.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a plasma display device according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a subframe configuration for realizing an intermediate gradation level. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a voltage / current detection circuit 43 in FIG. 1. 5 is a timing chart showing timings of writing to and reading from a frame memory. 4 is a flowchart of power consumption control according to the first example of the present invention. 6 is a flowchart of power consumption control according to a second embodiment of the present invention. 7 is a flowchart of a modification of FIG. 6. 9 is a flowchart of power consumption control according to a third embodiment of the present invention. 14 is a flowchart of power consumption control according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of reference numerals

10 Plasma display panel 12 Y electrode 14 Address electrode 16 X electrode 18 Display cell

Claims (16)

(A) calculating a screen load factor from display data given to the display unit;
(B) measuring the power consumption of the display unit,
(C) A method for controlling the power consumption of the display unit, comprising the steps of controlling the brightness of the entire screen based on the calculated load factor and the measured power consumption. Step (c)
(I) when there is a change in the load factor exceeding a predetermined threshold, changing the screen brightness to a value corresponding to the load factor;
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: (ii) changing a screen brightness so that the power consumption approaches a target value. Sub-step (c) (i) comprises:
Inversely calculate the load factor that gives that value from the current screen brightness setting value,
3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising a sub-step of changing the screen brightness to a value corresponding to the load factor of the next screen when the difference between the load factor obtained by the back calculation and the load factor of the next screen exceeds a predetermined threshold. Method. Sub-step (c) (i) comprises:
When the difference between the stored load factor and the current load factor exceeds a predetermined threshold, the sub-step of changing the screen brightness to a value corresponding to the current load factor and updating the stored load factor is performed. The method of claim 2 comprising: Sub-step (c) (i) comprises:
Calculate the brightness value according to the load factor of the next screen,
3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising: when the difference between the luminance value calculated from the load factor of the next screen and the current luminance value exceeds a predetermined threshold, changing the screen luminance to a value corresponding to the load factor of the next screen. The described method.   3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the luminance value according to the load factor in the sub-steps (c) and (i) is a value such that the actual power consumption at the load factor becomes higher than the target power.   2. The display unit according to claim 1, wherein the display unit includes a plasma display panel, and a control circuit of the plasma display panel for applying a number of sustain pulses corresponding to a given luminance value to the plasma display panel within a predetermined period. Method. Means for calculating a screen load factor from display data provided to the display unit;
Means for measuring the power consumption of the display unit;
Means for controlling the brightness of the entire screen based on the calculated load factor and the measured power consumption. The control means includes:
When there is a change in the load factor exceeding a predetermined threshold, a brightness change unit that changes the screen brightness to a value according to the load factor,
9. The apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising: means for changing screen brightness so that the power consumption approaches a target value. The brightness changing means,
Means for back-calculating the load factor giving the value from the current screen brightness setting value;
10. The method according to claim 9, further comprising: when the difference between the load factor obtained by the back calculation and the load factor of the next screen exceeds a predetermined threshold, changing the screen brightness to a value corresponding to the load factor of the next screen. apparatus. The brightness changing means,
Means for storing the load factor;
When the difference between the stored load factor and the current load factor exceeds a predetermined threshold, the screen brightness is changed to a value corresponding to the current load factor and the stored load factor is updated. The device of claim 9 comprising: The brightness changing means,
Means for calculating a luminance value according to the load factor of the next screen;
Means for changing the screen brightness to a value corresponding to the load rate of the next screen when the difference between the brightness value calculated from the load rate of the next screen and the current brightness value exceeds a predetermined threshold value. The described device.   10. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the luminance value according to the load ratio of the luminance changing unit is a value such that the actual power consumption at the load ratio becomes higher than the target power.   9. The plasma display panel according to claim 8, wherein the display unit includes a plasma display panel, and a control circuit of the plasma display panel for applying a number of sustain pulses corresponding to a given luminance value to the plasma display panel within a predetermined period. apparatus.   A power consumption control device according to any one of claims 8 to 14, a plasma display panel, a drive circuit for driving the plasma display panel, and a drive circuit based on a luminance value given from the power consumption control device. A display system comprising a control unit.   A storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to implement the power consumption control method according to claim 1.

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