JPH0744130A - Driving method for gas discharge panel - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the luminance and duty ratio by performing the trickle discharge of a cell with maintaining pulses by using a single wide pulse. CONSTITUTION:Pulses having a potential -VT1 are applied to an auxiliary electrode and pulses having a potential VS1 are applied to a maintaining electrode to cause discharge between the auxiliary electrode and maintaining electrode, thereby performing trigger setting. Then scanning pulses having a potential Vk are applied to cathodes K1-Kn in line sequence and write pulses having a potential VA are applied to an anode. In a maintaining period, the single wide pulse which has a potential VS3 and nearly covers the entire maintaining period is applied to the maintaining electrode. Charged particles resulting from write discharge remain at a selected cell nearby the cathode of the barrier and inter-positive-column discharge wherein the maintaining pulses (potential VS3) are applied is caused between the maintaining electrode and the cathodes, so that the discharge is carried on for the maintaining period. The discharge is continuously carried out without interruption in the discharge maintaining period to improve the luminance and duty ratio.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of driving a direct current type gas discharge panel for displaying characters, figures, etc. by utilizing emission of gas discharge, and more particularly to a method of driving a gas discharge panel having a memory function. It is about.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, gas discharge panels can be made thin, and because they are flat, there is no display distortion at the corners, because there is no flicker, eyes are less likely to get tired, and harmful electromagnetic waves such as X-rays are emitted. Since it has features such as no temperature and a wide operating temperature range, it has been noticed and partially put into practical use.However, since the brightness is relatively low, it has recently become necessary to increase the brightness especially when displaying colors. A DC type gas discharge panel having a memory function has been proposed, for example, as an NHK 33 type PPM panel.

In order to increase the brightness of an AC type discharge panel, a method of separately driving a writing period for performing a writing discharge and a sustaining period for performing a sustaining discharge has been proposed as in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-284491. ing.

However, the former method is not the separate driving method, but another pulse is applied and written while periodically applying a pulse having a constant short width, and therefore the latter method is used. Since it is an AC type panel, in any case, the sustain discharge must be performed by periodically applying a pulse with a short time width.Therefore, almost half of the sustain period is not discharged, and the It hindered the improvement of the ratio.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a method of driving a gas discharge panel in which the brightness and the duty ratio are remarkably improved.

[0006]

A method of driving a gas discharge panel according to the present invention is characterized in that a gas discharge panel is provided with a writing period in which a writing discharge is performed and a sustaining period in which a sustaining discharge of a cell written by a sustaining pulse is performed. In the method of driving separately, the sustain pulse is performed by a single wide pulse.

[0007]

According to the driving method of the panel of the present invention, the priming effect is obtained by performing the trigger setting, the trigger discharge, and the seed fire discharge by the auxiliary electrodes such as the trigger electrode and the seed fire anode during the writing period, and utilizing these priming effects. Then, it is surely discharged between the anode and the cathode to write.

After the writing is completed, a negative voltage is applied to these auxiliary electrodes and the like to move positively charged particles near the cathode away from the cathode so that the unselected cells are not erroneously discharged by the sustain pulse.

In the sustain period, a sustain pulse is applied to the write anode or the sustain electrode to cause sustain discharge in the written selected cells, and writing continues, but in the non-selected cells, erroneous discharge occurs even if the sustain pulse is applied. The sustain pulse voltage margin can be increased without causing the above phenomenon.

In the present invention, by making this sustain pulse a single wide pulse, the discharge time becomes longer and the brightness and duty ratio are improved as compared with the system in which the sustain discharge time is periodically applied. You can In particular, if the sustain pulse is a single pulse having a width over almost the entire sustain period, the sustain pulse can be improved almost twice as compared with the case where the conventional sustain pulse is used.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. 1, 2, and 3 are a partially cutaway perspective view, a partial cross-sectional view, and a time chart showing a driving method of a gas discharge panel according to a first embodiment of the present invention, respectively.
5 and 6 are a partially cutaway perspective view, a partial cross-sectional view, and a time chart showing a driving method of the gas discharge panel according to the second embodiment, respectively.

Example 1 A case will be exemplified in which a priming effect is obtained by trigger setting and trigger discharge, and a sustain pulse is applied to a sustain electrode to sustain discharge.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, this gas discharge panel has a strip-shaped electrode 2 on a front substrate 1 made of glass or the like.
A transparent conductive film such as a TO or SnO ₂ film is formed by a method such as a sputtering method or a vapor deposition method, and a light-transmissive insulating layer 3 is formed on the transparent conductive film, which is mainly composed of a phosphor that emits red and green. A paste containing a phosphor that emits color as a main component and a paste containing a phosphor that emits blue as a main component are separately screen-printed for each cell and baked to form phosphor layers P _R , P _G , and P _B , respectively. , A part of the electrode acting as the anode 4 is removed.

On the other hand, on the back substrate 6, an insulating layer 7 is formed on the entire surface by screen printing and firing a glass paste, and a plurality of bus electrodes 8 which are three-dimensionally orthogonal to the electrodes are formed thereon by a silver paste. A resistance wire 9 branched from the bus electrode 8 for each cell is made of a paste containing ruthenium oxide as a main component, and a sustain electrode 10 connected to the resistance wire 9 is made of a conductive paste containing nickel as a main component. It is formed by screen printing and firing in order.

Further, an insulating layer 11 is formed by screen-printing and baking a low-melting glass paste so that the sustain electrodes 10 are exposed and the bus electrodes 8 and the resistance wires 9 are concealed.

On the insulating layer 11, the electrodes 2 are three-dimensionally orthogonal to each other.
So that the auxiliary electrodes 5'and K₁To K _nUp to n cathodes
12 are silver paste and nickel-based paste, respectively.
Formed by screen printing and baking with a cathode (cathode part
Except for the through hole part, the
-A cathode), and an insulating layer 11 'on the auxiliary electrode 5'.
Is formed by a glass paste.

Further, on the insulating layer 11 'and on the exposed portion of the insulating layer 11, there are respectively an insulating layer 13', a paste containing a phosphor emitting red color as a main component and a phosphor emitting green color as the insulating layer 13, respectively. The paste containing the main component and the paste containing the phosphor emitting blue color as the main component are separately screen-printed for each cell and baked to form the phosphor layers P _R , P _G , and P _B. Further, the partition wall 14 for separating each cell is formed by screen-printing and firing a glass paste a number of times.

After that, the front substrate and the rear substrate are overlapped and sealed, and a gas having a predetermined gas pressure, for example, He and Xe, is sealed in the space portion 15 at a pressure of 250 Torr to complete the gas discharge panel 16.

The gas discharge panel 1 thus obtained
As shown in the time chart of FIG. 3, 6 is driven separately in the write period and the sustain period. That is, first, in the writing period, the auxiliary electrode has the potential −V _T1 , and the sustain electrode has the potential V _T1 .
_A pulse _S1 is applied to cause discharge between the auxiliary electrode and the sustain electrode, and trigger setting is performed. Next, a scanning pulse having the potential −V _K is applied line-sequentially from the cathodes K ₁ to K _n , while a writing pulse having the potential V _A is applied to the anode to be displayed. At this time, a trigger discharge is generated between the insulating layer of the auxiliary electrode and the cathode immediately before writing, which serves as priming for the writing discharge, and discharge is reliably generated between the selected anode and cathode to perform writing.

[0020] When the scanning of the cathode is round, away from the cathode attracted to the sustain electrode cation near cathode potential -V _T2 to the auxiliary electrode, a pulse to the sustain electrodes becomes the potential -V _S2 is applied, ends the writing period To do.

During the sustain period, the potential V _{S3 is} applied to the sustain electrodes.
When a single pulse having a wide width is applied over almost the entire sustaining period and the potential of −V _KS is lowered on each cathode, the cells not selected are reduced in the number of charged particles near the cathode due to the migration of cations. Therefore, the sustain pulse (potential V _S3 ) is applied between the sustain electrode and the cathode because charged particles due to the write discharge remain near the cathode of the partition in the selected cell. The positive column discharge is performed while the display is on, and the display is displayed during the sustain period. During this discharge sustaining period, the discharge is continuously performed without interruption, so that the luminance and the duty ratio are improved by almost twice as compared with the conventional method.

Thus, one frame (16.7 m)
s) is over, and the same procedure is followed. Further, grayscale display can also be performed by configuring one frame into a plurality of subframes, configuring each subframe as described above, and weighting the length of the sustain period binary. Example 2 A case will be exemplified in which a priming effect is obtained by a pilot discharge and a sustain pulse is applied to the sustain electrodes to sustain the discharge.

As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, this gas discharge panel has a strip-shaped electrode 2 on a front substrate 1 made of glass or the like.
A transparent conductive film such as a TO or SnO ₂ film is formed by a method such as a sputtering method or a vapor deposition method, and a light-transmissive insulating layer 3 is formed on the transparent conductive film, which is mainly composed of a phosphor that emits red and green. A paste containing a phosphor that emits color as a main component and a paste containing a phosphor that emits blue as a main component are separately screen-printed for each cell and baked to form phosphor layers P _R , P _G , and P _B , respectively. , The anode 4 and the auxiliary electrode 5 are formed except for a part of the electrodes.

On the other hand, an insulating layer 7 is formed on the entire surface of the rear substrate 6 by screen printing and baking a glass paste, and a plurality of bus electrodes 8 which are three-dimensionally orthogonal to the electrodes are formed thereon by a silver paste. A resistance wire 9 branched from the bus electrode 8 for each cell is made of a paste containing ruthenium oxide as a main component, and a sustain electrode 10 connected to the resistance wire 9 is made of a conductive paste containing nickel as a main component. It is formed by screen printing and firing in order.

Further, an insulating layer 11 is formed by screen-printing and baking a low-melting glass paste so that the sustain electrodes 10 are exposed and the bus electrodes 8 and the resistance wires 9 are concealed.

On the insulating layer 11, n cathodes 12 of K ₁ to K _n are screen-printed and fired by a paste containing silver and nickel as main components so as to be three-dimensionally orthogonal to the electrode 2. Formed (excluding the through-hole part,
A hollow cathode is formed by overprinting), and a paste containing a phosphor that emits red as a main component and a phosphor that emits green as a main component are formed as an insulating layer 13 on the insulating layer 11 excluding the cathode portion. A component paste and a paste containing a blue-coloring phosphor as a main component are separately screen-printed for each cell and baked to form phosphor layers P _R , P _G , and P _B. Further, the partition wall 14 for separating each cell is formed by screen-printing and firing a glass paste a number of times.

After that, the front substrate and the rear substrate are superposed and sealed, and a gas having a predetermined gas pressure, for example, He and Xe, is sealed in the space 15 at a pressure of 250 Torr to complete the gas discharge panel 16.

The gas discharge panel 1 thus obtained
6 indicates a writing period as shown in the time chart of FIG.
Drive separately in the sustain period. That is, first the writing period
Between the burning anode and the sustaining anode connected to the writing anode.
Each pole has the same potential V_AABecomes a periodic species
Fire pulse and potential is -V _S1A periodic pulse of
And periodically seeds between the seed anode and sustain electrode in all cells.
Fire discharge occurs.

On the other hand, when a scanning pulse having a potential of −V _K is applied to the cathode in a line sequential manner from K ₁ to K _n, and when writing to a predetermined cell, the corresponding writing anode is selected when the corresponding cathode is selected. When a pulse whose potential is V _WA is applied to
Due to the priming effect of the seed discharge, discharge is reliably generated between the writing anode and the cathode in the selected predetermined cell, and writing is performed.

When the scanning of the cathode has completed one cycle, a pulse of potential -V _S2 is applied to the sustain electrode to move cations near the cathode away from the cathode and attract them to the sustain electrode, thus ending the writing period.

In the sustain period, the potential V _{S3 is} applied to the sustain electrodes.
A wide single pulse was applied over almost the entire sustaining period, and when the potential of each cathode was lowered to −V _KS , the unselected cells had less charged particles near the cathode due to the migration of the cations. Therefore, no sustaining pulse (potential V _S3 ) is applied between the sustain electrode and the cathode because charged particles due to the write discharge remain near the cathode of the partition in the selected cell. The positive column discharge is performed while the display is on, and the display is displayed during the sustain period. During this discharge sustaining period, the discharge is continuously performed without interruption, so that the luminance and the duty ratio are improved by almost twice as compared with the conventional method.

Thus, one frame (16.7 m)
s) is over, and the same procedure is followed. The preferred embodiments have been described above, but the present invention is not limited to these, and various applications are possible.

Regarding the driving method, in the writing period, it is necessary to apply a voltage to the auxiliary electrode or the like to perform priming before writing, and after writing is completed, erroneous discharge due to sustain pulses is prevented and the voltage margin is increased. Therefore, it is preferable to apply a negative voltage to the sustain electrode, the auxiliary electrode, etc. so that the positively charged particles near the cathode are moved away from the cathode.

The sustain pulse in the sustain period is effective only by widening the conventional pulse having a short width. However, when a single pulse has a width of almost the entire sustain period, the effect is maximized. This is preferable because the brightness and the duty ratio are almost doubled.

The panel to which this driving method can be applied is not limited to the panel of the embodiment, but any panel of DC type having a memory function can be applied.
Of course, it can be applied to an M panel or the like.

[0036]

The method of driving a gas discharge panel according to the present invention comprises:
The brightness and the duty ratio are remarkably improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a partially cutaway perspective view of a gas discharge panel according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a partial cross-sectional view of the gas discharge panel according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a time chart showing a driving method of the gas discharge panel according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway perspective view of a gas discharge panel according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a partial cross-sectional view of a gas discharge panel according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a time chart showing a method for driving a gas discharge panel according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Front substrate 2 Electrode 3 Translucent insulating layer 4 Anode 5, 5'Auxiliary electrode 6 Back substrate 8 Bus electrode 9 Resistance wire strip 10 Sustaining electrode 11, 11 ', 13, 13' Insulating layer 12 Cathode 14 Partition wall 15 Space part 16 Gas discharge panel

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A method of separately driving a gas discharge panel into a write period in which a write discharge is performed and a sustain period in which a sustain discharge of cells written by a sustain pulse is performed, wherein the sustain pulse is a single wide pulse. The method for driving a gas discharge panel is characterized in that it is performed by the pulse of.