This application claims benefit of priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2018-0094677 filed on Aug. 14, 2018 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present inventive concept relates to a degradation compensation device and an organic light emitting display device including the same. More particularly, the present inventive concept relates to a degradation compensation device, and for performing digital compensation and analog compensation.
In organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), the degree of luminance may be lowered depending on a driving period and the amount of driving current, a main cause of deteriorating quality in OLED displays.
The deterioration of a device may appear as a decrease in luminescence or brightness, and uneven deterioration occurs between a channel and a device depending on usage time. As a result, the quality of an image deteriorates due to the degradation in luminance, color shift and degradation in uniformity.
An aspect of the present inventive concept is to provide a degradation compensation device, capable of preventing afterimage and maintaining image quality, by maintaining starting luminance and chromaticity in a state before deterioration of an OLED device occurs, for as long as possible, and an organic light emitting display device including the same.
According to an aspect of the present inventive concept, a degradation compensation device includes a degradation rate acquisition unit acquiring estimated degradation rates, estimated with respect to a plurality of respective pixels, based on panel usage information; a digital compensation unit performing digital compensation to lower a digital gradation of each pixel, based on a luminance of a pixel having a maximum degradation rate, among the estimated degradation rates; and an analog compensation unit performing analog compensation to increase luminance of the plurality of pixels by changing an analog voltage supplied to a panel, after performing the digital compensation.
According to an aspect of the present inventive concept, an organic light emitting display device includes a panel; and a degradation compensation device. The degradation compensation device includes a degradation rate acquisition unit acquiring estimated degradation rates, estimated with respect to a plurality of respective pixels, using a stretched exponential decay model generated using cumulative degradation amount information obtained by accumulating a degradation amount, based on usage information with respect to the panel; a digital compensation unit performing digital compensation, using the degradation rates with respect to the plurality of respective pixels; and an analog compensation unit performing analog compensation by changing an analog voltage supplied to the panel, after performing the digital compensation.
According to an aspect of the present inventive concept, an organic light emitting display device includes a panel; and a degradation compensation device estimating degradation rates with respect to a plurality of respective pixels by passing cumulative degradation amount information through a stretched exponential decay model defined by a degradation rate function over time, using voltage information for actual pixel output based on the panel, the degradation compensation device calculating a compensation voltage for each pixel, based on a luminance of a pixel having a maximum degradation rate among the degradation rates estimated by the degradation compensation device, to supply the compensation voltage to the plurality of pixels, and calculating a gamma tap voltage supplied to the panel to change an analog voltage of a source driver.
The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of the present disclosure will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present inventive concept will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The advantages and features of the present inventive concept and the manner of achieving them will become apparent with reference to the embodiments described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The present inventive concept may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. The invention is only defined by the scope of the claims. Like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout the specification.
The terms ‘unit’, ‘module’, ‘table’, etc. used in the present embodiment mean software and hardware component elements such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), and ‘module’ performs certain functions. However, modules are not meant to be limited to software or hardware. A module may be configured to reside on an addressable storage medium and configured to play one or more processors. Thus, by way of example, a module may include components such as software components, object-oriented software components, class components and task components, and processes, functions, attributes, procedures, subroutines, Microcode, circuitry, data, databases, data structures, tables, arrays, and variables, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. The functions provided in the components and modules may be combined into a smaller number of components and modules or further separated into additional components and modules. In addition, components and modules may be implemented to reproduce one or more central processing units (CPUs) in the device.
Thus, the deterioration of a device may appear as a decrease in luminescence or brightness, and uneven deterioration occurs between a channel and a device depending on usage time. As a result, the quality of an image deteriorates due to the degradation in luminance, color shift and degradation in uniformity.
The degradation rate estimation unit 100 may obtain estimated degradation rates with respect to a plurality of respective pixels based on panel usage information. The panel usage information may indicate information regarding a voltage used for actual pixel output based on a display driver stage of the panel. The degradation rate estimation unit 100 may correspond the degradation rate estimation unit 100 described with reference to
The digital compensation unit 200 may perform digital compensation based on the estimated degradation rates obtained by the degradation rate estimation unit 100. The digital compensation unit 200 may correspond to the digital compensation unit 200 described with reference to
The analog compensation unit 300 may perform analog compensation based on the estimated degradation rates obtained by the degradation rate estimation unit 100. The analog compensation unit 300 may correspond to the analog compensation unit 300 described with reference to
Thus, the degradation compensation device may determine voltage information for a plurality of pixels of a display panel, estimate a degradation amount for each of the plurality of pixels based on the corresponding voltage information, calculate a compensation voltage for each of the plurality of pixels based at least in part on the corresponding degradation amount, and supply the compensation voltage the corresponding pixel.
The degradation amount acquisitor 110 may accumulate a degradation amount, based on a voltage for actual pixel output, where the voltage is based on a panel in the display driver stage.
As described above, the degradation compensation device according to exemplary embodiments may not accumulate the degradation amount based on image data (digital gradation), but rather measures the voltage for actual pixel output according to the characteristics of each panel in the display driver stage. The degradation of the pixel will be affected by the cumulative through-current since the voltage for the actual pixel output on the display driver stage is directly related to the through-current. According to exemplary embodiments, a relatively large amount of accurate cumulative degradation information may be obtained by applying the method considering the characteristics of the panel. For example, the voltage information of each gradation determined in a gamma voltage generator may be used as a voltage for actual pixel output.
The degradation rate estimator 120 may utilize a stretched exponential decay model in which the cumulative degradation amount information is defined by a degradation rate function over time, to estimate degradation rates for a plurality of respective pixels. The degradation rate may indicate a ratio of luminance after a decrease in luminance due to degradation, relative to starting luminance.
A degradation test may be performed to measure an output state, for example, a luminance degradation degree depending on a driving voltage, and to extract a stretched exponential decay model. In this case, reliable measurement of the luminance degradation degree should be performed, and the output state, for example, a driving voltage, should be precisely defined. To conduct the degradation test, various driving voltages may be input to a panel for respective channels. In some cases, a degradation pattern for modeling may be used. For example, a pattern including 16 data points per channel (i.e., R/G/B/W channels) may be used.
Various driving voltages for each channel (R/G/B/W) may be input to perform a degradation progression, and then images may be captured using radiant equipment depending on the degradation progression, thereby measuring luminance reduction over time.
The stretched exponential decay model may have, for example, the form of a stretched exponential decay model as illustrated in Equation 1. Thus, the degradation test may be used to extract the parameters of Equation 1.
In Equation 1, L represents luminance and L0 indicates a starting luminance. The parameter t is a time variable, and τ is a decay time constant, time taken for degradation to reach a predetermined reference level, as compared with starting luminance. For example, when a preset reference is set to 63.2%, τ may indicate a period of time taken for degradation to reach 63.2% (L/L0=0.368) of a starting luminance.
The parameter β may be related to degradation type, and indicates a constant value (i.e., a stretch factor describing initial drop sharpness) determined for each channel, irrespective of gradation. After determining the β and τ parameters using data obtained by measuring the luminance, a β value having a smallest error is selected for each channel, and an appropriate value of τ for each piece of data is determined.
Based on the above-described voltage-τ (time) relationship, when a specific voltage is input, a degradation amount may be accumulated by 1/τ (in unites of stress per unit time). As luminance increases, the lifetime (τ) may decrease, and thus, a relatively larger amount of degradation may be accumulated. The parameter τ may be converted into the unit of a frame, such that a normalized unit is accumulated when a highest luminance voltage is applied in a single frame, and a relative value (<=1) may be accumulated when a lesser voltage is applied. The cumulative degradation amount may be converted into a degradation rate by passing through a stretched exponential decay model (SED) function previously determined through a degradation experiment.
In the present inventive concept, the degradation amount may indicate the reverse of the time taken until the luminance decreases to a predetermined ratio by continuously applying a predetermined voltage with respect to a starting luminance. The degradation rate may indicate a ratio of luminance after the decrease (i.e., due to degradation) to a starting luminance.
The digital compensation unit 200 may perform digital compensation to lower the digital gradation of each pixel based on a luminance of a pixel in which a maximum degradation rate has been generated among estimated degradation rates. As illustrated in
Digital compensation may be performed to reduce a degradation in uniformity occurring due to a difference in a degradation rate between a pixel and a channel. However, if a decrease in luminance occurs, the luminance may not be increased without a rising digital gradation margin. Thus, a method of improving uniformity by lowering a digital gradation may be used, based on the luminance of the pixel in which a maximum degradation rate occurs among the pixels of all channels.
To this end, the digital adjustment luminance calculator 210 may multiply an adjustment ratio (i.e., the ratio between the degradation rate of the pixel having the highest degradation rate and the degradation rate of the pixel to be compensated) by the luminance of the pixel to be compensated to calculate a digital adjustment luminance value.
Referring to
Next, the digital adjustment voltage calculator 220 may calculate a voltage value to be applied to the pixel to be compensated from the digital adjustment luminance value. The voltage value may be calculated using the relationship between the luminance and the voltage, which may depend on panel characteristics. For example, the digital adjustment voltage calculator 220 may calculate a voltage value to be applied to the pixel, such that the luminance of the pixel to be compensated may be reduced from 450 to 350. This value may be the a digital adjustment luminance value.
In this case, a predetermined voltage-luminance relationship (i.e., an I-V curve) may be used according to characteristics of a panel. For example, as illustrated in
The digital voltage adjuster 230 may apply an adjustment voltage value, (i.e., the value calculated by the digital adjustment voltage calculator 220) to the pixel to be compensated in order to lower the digital gradation.
According to exemplary embodiments, the adjustment gradation calculator 240 may calculate an adjustment gradation of the pixel to be compensated from the adjustment voltage value calculated by the digital adjustment voltage calculator 220. The adjustment gradation may be calculated using a degradation corresponding to a panel characteristic and a voltage. This adjustment gradation may be obtained from a gamma curve indicating the relationship (i.e., a P-V curve) between the gradation and the driving voltage. The lower left of
According to an exemplary embodiment, the adjustment gradation calculator 240 may also simplify a relationship (i.e., the I-V curve) between the voltage and the luminance and a relationship (i.e., the P-V curve) between the gradation and the voltage, to a relationship (i.e., an I-P curve) between the luminance and the gradation. Then, adjustment gradation calculator 240 may calculate the adjustment gradation of a pixel to be compensated from the digital adjustment luminance value. The hardware complexity of a device may be reduced by simplifying the relationship between the luminance and voltage and gradation to a direct relationship of the luminance and gradation.
Using the relationship between the luminance-voltage-gradation for the gradation for changing to a specific luminance ratio (which may be based on panel characteristics) may improve the accuracy of the gradation calculation. In addition, color distortion, regional afterimage and the like (e.g., due to a difference in a degradation speed between pixels or channels) may be reduced through the digital compensation. For example, an afterimage due to high luminance output may occur in a fingerprint sensing region of fingerprint-on-display (FoD), and such an afterimage may be prevented by digital compensation.
The analog compensation unit 300 may perform analog compensation to increase the luminance of a plurality of pixels by changing the analog voltage supplied to a panel after performing the digital compensation. The analog compensation unit 300, according to exemplary embodiments, may include an analog adjustment luminance calculator 310 and an analog adjustment voltage calculator 320.
The analog adjustment luminance calculator 310 may calculate an analog adjustment luminance value by multiplying the inverse of an adjustment ratio (specifically, the ratio between the degradation rate of a pixel having the highest degradation rate and the degradation rate of the pixel to be compensated) by the luminance of the pixel to be compensated. For example, the the adjustment ratio may be 7/9, and the inverse of the ratio, 9/7, may be multiplied by the luminance of the pixel to be compensated (which may have already been digitally compensated) to calculate the adjusted analog adjustment luminance value.
The analog adjustment voltage calculator 320 may calculate a gamma tap voltage value (to be applied to the pixel to be compensated) from the analog adjustment luminance value calculated by the analog adjustment luminance calculator 310. The gamma tap voltage value may be calculated using the relationship between the luminance and the voltage, which may depend on panel characteristics. The analog adjustment voltage calculator 320 may then add the gamma tap voltage value to the pixel to be compensated.
The gamma tap voltage value may be calculated using the voltage-luminance relationship (i.e., the I-V curve) as illustrated in
As illustrated in
In an exemplary embodiment of the present inventive concept, if the compensation is performed for each gamma tap based on a preset gamma curve, it may be performed without gamma distortion. For example, a high luminance output may be required in a fingerprint region to perform fingerprint sensing in an FoD, and a decrease in luminance due to degradation may cause degradation in fingerprint recognition performance. However, the decrease in recognition performance may be prevented by luminance compensation by compensating for degradation according to exemplary embodiments of the present inventive concept.
When a uniform (full white) image is input, color distortion may also occur due to a decrease in the luminance of a specific channel (i.e., a blue channel), and a boundary may appear in the form of an afterimage.
According to exemplary embodiments, if modulation is performed then, after digital compensation, the luminance can be made more smooth as indicated by the lowermost curve in the lower graph of
After the digital compensation, the luminance may be restored to the starting luminance (i.e., the luminance before degradation) through analog compensation. In the lower graph of
As illustrated in
A gamma register set to correspond to the gamma tap voltage may be calculated to update the previous gamma register set. Thus, analog compensation may be performed for each gamma tap, based on a gamma curve.
As set forth above, according to exemplary embodiments, digital compensation and analog compensation may be performed using a degradation rate predicted based on a voltage for actual pixel output, depending on panel characteristics. The digital compensation and analog compensation may generate accurate compensation data corresponding to the physical characteristics of a panel in order to maintain a starting luminance.
While exemplary embodiments have been shown and described above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications and variations could be made without departing from the scope of the present inventive concept as defined by the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10-2018-0094677 | Aug 2018 | KR | national |