KR100649184B1 - Plasma display panel and driving method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a plasma display panel including a plurality of first electrodes and a second electrode formed on a first substrate, and a plurality of third electrodes intersecting the first and second electrodes and formed on a second substrate. A method for driving a plasma panel in which one frame is divided into a plurality of subfields, the scan operation being performed in an address section and at n times at a time t1 in m units, but the lines of the plurality of first electrodes are subfielded. The number of weights is divided into groups, the same subfield weights are assigned to all lines in each group, and address scans between the groups are sequentially driven. In this way, the vertical lines are driven in group units so that the AWD driving can be performed regardless of the number of lines for addressing.

PDP, Discharge, AWD, Group, Address, Sustain

Description

Plasma display panel and driving method thereof {PLASMA DISPLAY PANEL AND DRIVING METHOD THEREOF}

1 is a schematic partial perspective view of a typical plasma display panel.

2 is an electrode array diagram of a general plasma display panel.

3 is a diagram illustrating an AWD driving method that is generally applied.

4 is a view showing an AWD driving method of a plasma display panel having 480 lines and four subfields.

5 is a configuration diagram of a plasma display panel according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

6 is an example of an AWD driving method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

7 is an example of a line in group units stored in a memory.

8 is another example of the AWD driving method according to the embodiment of the present invention.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a plasma display panel (PDP), and more particularly to a method of driving a plasma display panel.

A plasma display panel is a flat display device that displays characters or images by using plasma generated by gas discharge, and tens to millions or more of pixels are arranged in a matrix form according to their size. First, a structure of a general plasma display panel will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

1 is a partial perspective view of a plasma display panel, and FIG. 2 shows an electrode arrangement diagram of the plasma display panel.

As shown in Fig. 1, the plasma display panel includes two glass substrates 1 and 6 facing each other apart. On the glass substrate 1, the scan electrode 4 and the sustain electrode 5 are formed in pairs and in parallel, and the scan electrode 4 and the sustain electrode 5 are covered with the dielectric layer 2 and the protective film 3. have. A plurality of address electrodes 8 are formed on the glass substrate 6, and the address electrodes 8 are covered with the insulator layer 7. The address electrode 8 and the partition 9 are formed on the insulator layer 7 between the address electrodes 8. In addition, the phosphor 10 is formed on the surface of the insulator layer 7 and on both sides of the partition wall 9. The glass substrates 1 and 6 are disposed to face each other with the discharge space 11 therebetween so that the scan electrode 4, the address electrode 8, the sustain electrode 5, and the address electrode 8 are orthogonal to each other. The discharge space 11 at the intersection of the address electrode 8 and the paired scan electrode 4 and the sustain electrode 5 forms a discharge cell 12.

Here, the wall charge refers to a charge that is formed on the wall of the discharge cell (eg, the dielectric layer) close to each electrode and accumulates in the electrode. This wall charge is not actually in contact with the electrode itself, but here the wall charge is described as "formed", "accumulated" or "stacked" on the electrode. In addition, a wall voltage refers to the potential difference formed in the wall of a discharge cell by wall charge.

In addition to forming a discharge space, the partition wall blocks light generated during discharge to prevent cross talk of neighboring pixels. A plurality of such unit structures are formed on a single substrate in a matrix form, and a fluorescent material is applied to each unit structure to form one pixel, and the pixels are gathered to form a plasma display panel. Plasma display panels, which are currently commercialized, generate a discharge in each pixel, and excite a fluorescent material coated on the inner wall of the pixel with ultraviolet rays generated by the discharge to realize a desired color.

As shown in FIG. 2, the electrode of the plasma display panel has a matrix structure of n × m. In the column direction, address electrodes A ₁ -A _m are arranged, and in the row direction, n rows of scan electrodes Y ₁ -Y _n and sustain electrodes X ₁ -X _n are arranged in pairs.

In order for a plasma display panel to perform as a color display, it is necessary to implement halftones. Currently, a halftone implementation method of dividing one TV field into a plurality of subfields and controlling the time division is used. have.

3 illustrates an AWD driving method, which is one of driving methods of a general plasma display panel.

An address while display (AWD) is a driving method in which a sustain discharge voltage is applied to another scan electrode while a scan pulse voltage is applied to a specific scan electrode. An example of such a driving method is described in US Pat. No. 6256002. Hereinafter, this type of driving method is called an AWD driving method.

Referring to FIG. 3, in the AWD driving method, a sustain process is performed while a scan pulse is applied to a specific electrode. According to the AWD driving method, there is no distinction between an address section and a sustain section from a time point of view, and an address operation occurs for a specific line while most scan electrodes (or sustain electrodes) perform a sustain operation. It becomes visible. That is, when an address is given to a specific line, the remaining lines are sustained.

When driving in the AWD method as shown in FIG. 3, an address is performed in units of k lines (k is a positive integer) in a specific address section. In this case, the addressing in units of K lines means that the scan pulse voltage is simultaneously applied to k lines, but is scanned at an arbitrary time interval. This is described in detail in US Pat. No. 6256002, which is well known to those skilled in the art.

In the case of Fig. 3, at the time of addressing the first line, the address should be addressed for eight lines including the first line.

4 shows an example in which AWD driving is performed using four subfields (weights 32H, 64H, 128H, and 256H, respectively) on a panel of 480 vertical lines.

Referring to FIG. 4, at the time of addressing the first line, an address is generated for the 257th, 385th, and 449th lines, and the remaining lines are in the sustain process. At this time, the first line is the address of SF1, the 257th line is the address of SF4, the 385th line is the address of SF3, and the 449th line is the address of SF2.

In this case, when an address for SF1 of the second line after 32H occurs, an address (scan) is also made to the 258,386,450th line.

However, when driving as shown in FIG. 3, driving is performed without temporal loss. As shown in the example of FIG. 4, when the number of vertical lines is not a multiple of the sum of the sum of the subfield weights, as shown in FIG. There is a problem that it is impossible to drive without.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in an effort to solve the above-described problems of the prior art, and to provide a plasma display panel and a driving method thereof for enabling AWD driving regardless of the number of vertical lines in the plasma display panel.

The plasma display panel according to one aspect of the present invention for solving the above problems,

A plasma display panel which receives externally input image data and drives an address and a display simultaneously.

First substrate,

A plurality of first electrodes and second electrodes formed on the first substrate, respectively;

A second substrate facing away from the first substrate,

A plurality of third electrodes formed on the second substrate in a direction crossing the first and second electrodes, and

And a driving circuit for applying a sustain discharge voltage to another first electrode while a scan pulse voltage is applied to the first electrode to discharge the discharge cells formed by the adjacent first, second and third electrodes. ,

The driving circuit may perform a scan operation in an address section and in units of m at a time n times t2 at a time t1.

The plasma display panel according to another aspect of the present invention for solving this problem,

A plasma panel comprising a plurality of address electrodes and a plurality of sustain electrode pairs formed of a plurality of first and second sustain electrodes crossing the address electrodes and arranged in pairs with each other;

A memory for dividing the first sustain electrode lines into any number of groups and storing information on lines belonging to each group;

Receives an image signal from the outside, generates and outputs an address driving control signal S _A and first and second sustain discharge signals S _Y and S _X , and at time t1 in the address section with reference to the memory. a control unit controlling to perform a scan operation in units of m at n times t2;

An address driver which receives the address drive control signal from the controller and applies a display data signal to the address electrode to select a discharge cell to be displayed; And

A discharge cell selected by receiving the first sustain discharge signal and the second sustain discharge signal from the controller, respectively, and alternately input a positive discharge sustain voltage and a negative discharge sustain voltage to the first sustain electrode and the second sustain electrode; And first and second holding drivers configured to perform a sustain discharge with respect to each other.

The driving method of the plasma display panel according to another aspect of the present invention for solving the technical problem,

A plurality of first electrodes and second electrodes formed on the first substrate, and a plurality of third electrodes formed on the second substrate and crossing the first and second electrodes, respectively; A driving method of a plasma display panel in which a sustain discharge voltage is applied to another first electrode while a pulse voltage is applied,

The scan operation may be performed in the address section in n units at time t1 and m units at time t2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art may easily implement the present invention. As those skilled in the art would realize, the described embodiments may be modified in various different ways, all without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention.

In the drawings, parts irrelevant to the description are omitted in order to clearly describe the present invention. Like parts are designated by like reference numerals throughout the specification.

Here, the address period refers to a period in which an addressing operation is performed using a predetermined number (usually the same as, but not necessarily limited to, the number of subfields) as one unit. Usually, the address period coincides with, but is not necessarily limited to, one sustain discharge period applied to the scan electrode (or sustain electrode). Here, the addressing operation of the predetermined number of scan electrodes as one unit does not mean that the scan pulse voltage is simultaneously applied to the predetermined number of scan electrodes. This means that the scan pulse is applied for a time corresponding to the timeslot.

In more detail, one address period has a plurality of timeslots (usually, the number of time slots is the same as, but not necessarily limited to, the number of subfields). In this case, a scan pulse is applied to each of the predetermined number of scan electrodes in which the addressing operation is performed in one unit for a time corresponding to one of the plurality of time slots.

5 illustrates a plasma display panel according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 5, the PDP according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a plasma panel 100, an address driver 200, first and second sustain drivers 320 and 340, a controller 400, and a memory 500. ).

The plasma panel 100 includes a plurality of address electrodes A1 to Am arranged in a column direction, first sustain electrodes Y1 to Yn, and second sustain electrodes X1 to Xn arranged in a zigzag direction in a row direction. Include.

The address driver 200 receives an address driving control signal S _A from the controller 400 and applies a display data signal for selecting a discharge cell to be displayed to each address electrode.

The first and second sustain drivers 320 and 340 receive the first and second sustain discharge signals S _Y and S _X from the control unit 400, respectively, and the sustain discharge voltage is applied to the first sustain electrode and the second sustain electrode. Alternately inputs the sustain discharge to the selected discharge cells.

The memory 500 divides the first sustain electrode Y1 to Yn lines into an arbitrary number of groups and stores information on the lines belonging to each group.

The controller 400 receives an image signal from an external source, generates an address driving control signal S _A , and first and second sustain discharge signals S _Y and S _X to maintain the address driver, the first and second sustains, respectively. Deliver to drive. In this case, the controller 400 controls the scan operation to be performed in units of m at the time point t1 and l at the time t1 with reference to the memory 500.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example in which vertical lines, which are sustain electrode lines, are divided into 15 groups by applying a method of driving a plasma display panel according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

In the case of driving as shown in FIG. 3, as shown in the example of FIG. 4, AWD driving is not possible unless the number of vertical lines as scan electrode lines is a multiple of the sum of the subfield weights.

However, referring to FIG. 6, when driving as in the embodiment of the present invention, AWD driving as shown in FIG. 3 is possible in any case even if the number of vertical lines is not a multiple of the sum of the sum of the subfield weights. .

In driving, since the number of lines to be addressed differs at each address time point, the time allocated to the address is determined depending on the maximum number of lines to be addressed.

However, if the number of lines in each group is determined and arranged by the following method, the number of corresponding lines that need to be addressed at the address point can be made no big difference compared to the existing ones, thereby minimizing the disadvantages.

When the number of lines in each group is Gi, the number of vertical lines is n, and the sum of the weights of each subfield is sum, the number Gi of lines in each group can be determined as in Equation 1 below.

For example, if the number of vertical lines n = 20 and four subfields is used and the subfield weight sum sum = 15, k = 1. If the number of lines (Gi) of the first, fifth, ninth, twelfth, and fourteenth groups is 2, and the number of lines of the remaining groups is 1, the number of lines scanned during every 1H interval is 4 It becomes ~ 6. The sum of the group driven in k line units and the group driven in K + 1 line units is the sum of the subfield weights.

At this time, when driving the AWD as shown in Figure 3, the number of lines to be scanned during the 1H period is 4-5.

In FIG. 6, numbers represent time points of each subfield address.

Like the first sustain electrode lines Y1 to Yn, the second sustain electrode X1 to Xn lines are driven together in pairs, and a description thereof is well known to those skilled in the art, and thus a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

In this driving, a line actually corresponding to each group is shown in FIG.

Referring to FIG. 7, an imaginary line x does not need to be scanned in a line belonging to each group. Therefore, the controller 400 applies a scan pulse to the actual line of each group in the address period with reference to the table shown in FIG. 7 stored in the memory 500.

Another example is shown in FIG.

Referring to Fig. 8, if the number of vertical lines n = 480 and 9 subfields are used, and sum = 511, k = 0, and Gi is 0 or 1. Therefore, the number of lines for addressing at the address point of time becomes 9 or less, so that an address time as in the case of AWD driving as shown in Fig. 3 is required.

As shown in the above two examples, if the number of lines in each group is determined in the same manner as in Equation 1 above, the number of lines for addressing at an address time point can be implemented without significant change compared to the conventional AWD driving.

Such an embodiment of the present invention allows AWD driving to a panel having an arbitrary number of subfields and a weight, and an arbitrary vertical line.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and various modifications and improvements of those skilled in the art using the basic concepts of the present invention defined in the following claims are also provided. It belongs to the scope of rights.

As described above, according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the AWD driving can be performed regardless of the number of lines for addressing by driving the vertical lines in group units.

Claims (9)

 A plasma display panel which receives externally input image data and drives an address and a display simultaneously. First substrate, A plurality of first electrodes and second electrodes formed on the first substrate, respectively; A second substrate facing away from the first substrate, A plurality of third electrodes formed on the second substrate in a direction crossing the first and second electrodes, and And a driving circuit for applying a sustain discharge voltage to another first electrode while a scan pulse voltage is applied to the first electrode to discharge the discharge cells formed by the adjacent first, second and third electrodes. , The driving circuit performs a scan operation in an address period and k + 1 units at a time point t1 and k at a time point t2. The driving circuit divides n lines of the plurality of first electrodes into groups as many as the total number of sub-field weights, and drives each group by k or K + 1 lines. The sum of the group driven in k line units and the group driven in K + 1 line units is the sum of the subfield weights. And k and k + 1, which are the number of lines in each group, are determined by the following equation.

delete The method of claim 1, And the driving circuit sequentially scans each group. The method of claim 1, The driving circuit And all the lines in each group have the same subfield weight. delete delete  A plasma panel comprising a plurality of address electrodes and a plurality of sustain electrode pairs formed of a plurality of first and second sustain electrodes crossing the address electrodes and arranged in pairs with each other; A memory for dividing the first sustain electrode lines into any number of groups and storing information on lines belonging to each group; Receives an image signal from the outside, generates and outputs an address driving control signal S _A and first and second sustain discharge signals S _Y and S _X , and at time t1 in the address section with reference to the memory. a control unit configured to perform a scan operation in k + 1 units at k t2 time points; An address driver which receives the address drive control signal from the controller and applies a display data signal to the address electrode to select a discharge cell to be displayed; And A discharge cell selected by receiving the first sustain discharge signal and the second sustain discharge signal from the controller, respectively, and alternately input a positive discharge sustain voltage and a negative discharge sustain voltage to the first sustain electrode and the second sustain electrode; A first and a second holding driver configured to perform a sustain discharge with respect to the The control unit divides n lines of the plurality of first sustain electrodes into groups equal to the total number of subfield weights, drives each group by k or K + 1 lines, and drives by k lines. And the sum of the groups driven in units of K + 1 lines is the sum of the weights of the subfields, and the number of lines in each group k, k + 1 is determined by the following equation.

 A plurality of first electrodes and second electrodes formed on the first substrate, and a plurality of third electrodes formed on the second substrate and crossing the first and second electrodes, respectively; A driving method of a plasma display panel in which a sustain discharge voltage is applied to another first electrode while a pulse voltage is applied, A group for dividing the n lines of the plurality of first electrodes into groups equal to the sum of the sum of the subfield weights, driving each group by k or K + 1 lines, and driving by k lines. The sum of the group driven by and K + 1 line unit is the sum of the subfield weights, In the address section, at the time t1, k scans are performed in units of k + 1 at the time t2. K and k + 1 are determined by the following equations.

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