JPS6012144Y2 - dot matrix display device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a means for obtaining lowercase numbers or letters constructed by a so-called dot matrix.

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, with the diversification of lifestyles, the information that is needed in everyday life has become more diverse, and it is now being considered to incorporate a large amount of information into portable devices such as wristwatches and small computers.

Improvements in integrated circuit technology have made it possible to miniaturize the information itself, and as a means of displaying it, dot matrix displays, which can more freely express numbers, letters, symbols, etc., have been used in the above-mentioned small portable information devices. has also started to be adopted.

Figure 1 shows an example of a 5-row, 7-column dot-matrix display applied to a clock, but it is difficult to read because the hours, minutes, and seconds are all the same size, and it is especially difficult to distinguish between seconds and minutes. It had drawbacks.

In order to solve this problem, the display of 1:00 J' minutes, which is most necessary, is made larger, and the display of 1 second is made smaller, as shown in Fig. 2.

On the other hand, FIG. 3 shows seconds displayed in lowercase letters using a dot configuration of 5 rows and 6 columns.

Further, when a liquid crystal display device is used as a display device, the electrode structure in the case of FIG. 1 is shown in FIG. 4, and in the case of FIG. 2 is shown in FIG. 5.

However, when it is done as shown in Figure 2, as can be seen from Figure 5, the gap between the electrodes cannot be made smaller due to the problem of inter-electrode resistance, and as a result, the lowercase dots become very large. The drawback was that it was small.

On the other hand, in the case of doing as shown in Fig. 3, conventionally, separate decoders for uppercase letters and lowercase letters are provided in the integrated circuit, and the display contents are identified in the circuit, and the decoder is switched to output to the display device. That's what I was doing.

However, in that case, the number of decoders for uppercase letters and lowercase letters would be twice as large, and circuits for identification and switching would also have to be provided.

The present invention eliminates the above drawbacks, requires no modification to the circuit, requires only one type of decoder for uppercase letters, and also eliminates the need for identification circuits or switching circuits. The purpose is to obtain.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail according to the drawings.

FIG. 6 shows the electrode structure of one embodiment of the present invention.

In this figure, 101-107 are column electrodes, 111-1
60 indicates a row electrode.

The plurality of row electrodes and column electrodes are arranged perpendicularly to each other,
The column electrodes 101 to 107 commonly constitute a matrix of a plurality of digits.

In a predetermined number of digit areas, all the column electrodes 101 to 107 are provided to form a capital letter display area, and in the remaining predetermined number of digit areas, electrodes 101 and 107 at both ends of all the column electrodes are provided. , and a predetermined number of column electrodes smaller than the total number of electrodes are provided at regular intervals to form a lower case region.

In this embodiment, no column electrodes 105 are arranged in the lowercase letter area.

In the dot matrix configuration constructed in this way,
FIG. 7 is a circuit block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

1 is an oscillation circuit, 2 is a frequency dividing circuit, 3 to 8 are counters corresponding to each display digit, 9 to 14 are a group of electrical switches for switching to supply the contents of the counter to the decoder 16;
5 is a timing pulse generation circuit that supplies timing pulses to the latch circuit groups 18 to 23; 16 is an AND term decoder; 17 is an OR term decoder; 24 is a latch circuit; 25 is a row (segment) for driving the matrix display 100; ) driver, and 26 is a column (common) driver.

Note that since the operation is already known, detailed explanation will be omitted.

The decoders 16 and 17 occupy a very large area of about 173 in an integrated circuit chip.

If separate decoders are provided for uppercase letters and lowercase letters as in the conventional example, the number of decoders will further double.

In this embodiment, a time display using only numbers is used to simplify the explanation, but as described above, with the diversification of information, not only numbers but also alphabets and the like are required.

In this case, in addition to the 10 characters of numbers 0 to 9, the two letters of the alphabet A to 2 are provided, and if separate decoders are prepared for each uppercase and lowercase letter, only the decoder part is required. This occupies most of the area of the integrated circuit chip.

Therefore, in the present invention, as shown in FIG. 6, the fifth column (common) electrode 105 is not provided in the lowercase letter display area, and the decoder is assembled as shown in FIG. Although there is only one type of output, the display is capable of displaying both uppercase letters shown in FIG. 8 and lowercase letters shown in FIG. 9.

In other words, since there is no fifth column electrode in the lowercase character display section, even if the decoder outputs data as shown in Figure 5, it will display a character with the dot corresponding to the fifth column electrode removed, that is, as in Figure 9. will be displayed as lowercase letters.

As described above, the present invention has the great effect of being able to display uppercase and lowercase letters very easily without increasing the decoder section, which occupies a large area of the integrated circuit chip.

Furthermore, there is no need to increase the size of the integrated circuit chip, whose cost is almost determined by its area, which helps reduce costs.
It is also very advantageous when mounting within a small area, such as in a wristwatch.

Although this embodiment uses a 9-digit clock as an example, it goes without saying that it can be applied to any dot matrix display device that uses numbers, alphabets, symbols, etc.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 and 2 are plan views of the display section showing the display state of a conventional example, FIG. 3 is a plan view of the display section showing the display state of an embodiment when the present invention is applied to a watch, and FIG. Fig. 5 shows the electrode structure of a conventional example, and Fig. 6 shows an electrode structure of an embodiment of the present invention.
This corresponds to Figure 3. FIG. 7 is a circuit block diagram, FIGS. 8a and 8b are uppercase letters according to the present invention, and FIGS. 9a and 9b are lowercase letters. 101-107... Column electrodes, 111-160.
... Row electrode, 1 ... Oscillation circuit, 2 ...
...Frequency divider circuit, 3 to 8...Counter, 9 to 1
4... Switch, 15... Timing pulse generation circuit, 16... AND term decoder,
17...OR term decoder, 25...Driver.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] In a display device constituted by a multi-digit dot matrix in which a column electrode is shared by a plurality of row electrodes and column electrodes that are orthogonal to each other, the column electrode is arranged such that all column electrodes are provided in a predetermined number of digit regions. In the remaining predetermined number of digit areas, a number of predetermined column electrodes smaller than the total number of column electrodes, including at least the column electrodes at both ends of all column electrodes, are provided at equal intervals to form a lowercase letter area. A dot matrix display device characterized by forming a dot matrix.