The present disclosure is related to a display device, and more particularly to a display device having a pulse width modulation mode and a current mode.
Electronic devices, such as display devices, have become indispensable necessities to modern people no matter in their work, study or entertainment. With a flourishing development of the portable electronic devices, the consumers not only pursue better electronic characteristics such as higher display quality, higher speed of response, longer life span or higher reliability, but also have higher expects on the functions or the stability of the products to be more diversified.
One embodiment of the present disclosure discloses a display device. The display device includes a plurality of pixels. Each pixel includes a light emitting unit and a driving circuit.
The driving circuit drives the light emitting unit in a pulse width modulation mode to present a first gray level lower than or equal to a predetermined gray level, and drives the light emitting unit in a current mode to present a second gray level higher than the predetermined gray level.
These and other objectives of the present disclosure will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
This description is made for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the disclosure and should not be taken in a limiting sense.
The term “substantially” as used herein are inclusive of the stated value and means within an acceptable range of deviation for the particular value as determined by one of ordinary skill in the art, considering the measurement in question and the error associated with measurement of the particular quantity (i.e., the limitations of the measurement system). For example, “substantially” can mean within one or more standard deviations, or within ±20%, ±15%, ±10%, ±5%, ±3% of the stated value. It is noted that the term “same” may also refer to “about” because of the process deviation or the process fluctuation.
It should be understood that the following disclosure provides many different embodiments, or examples, for implementing different features of the application. Specific examples of components and arrangements are described below to simplify the present disclosure. These are, of course, merely examples and are not intended to be limiting. In addition, the present disclosure may repeat reference numerals and/or letters in the various examples. This repetition is for the purpose of simplicity and clarity and does not in itself dictate a relationship between the various embodiments and/or configurations discussed. Moreover, the formation of a feature on, connected to, and/or coupled to another feature in the present disclosure that follows may include embodiments in which the features are formed in direct contact, and may also include embodiments in which additional features may be formed interposing the features, such that the features may not be in direct contact.
At least one of the pixel 100(1,1) to 100(M,N) can be coupled to a corresponding scan line of the scan line SCL1 to the scan line SCLM, and a corresponding data line of the data line DL1 to the data line DLN. Also, at least one of the pixels 100(1,1) to 100(M,N) can include a light emitting unit 110 and a driving circuit 120. The following may take the pixel 100(1,1) as an example, and the examples of the pixel 100(1,1) may be applied to at least one of other pixels. The light emitting unit 110 can be a light emitting diode (LED), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), an inorganic light emitting diode, a mini-meter-sized LED (mini-LED), a micro-meter-sized LED(micro-LED), or a quantum dot.
In some embodiments, the driving circuit 120 can drive the light emitting unit 110 to emit light in a current mode or a pulse width modulation (PWM) mode. In the current mode, the intensity of the driving current may be determined according to the gray level to be presented. That is, to present a gray level of higher brightness, the driving circuit 120 may generate a driving current with higher intensity. However, to reduce the color shift caused by low driving current used for gray levels of lower brightness, the driving circuit 120 can be switched to the PWM mode when presenting the gray levels of low brightness. In the PWM mode, instead of generating a driving current with low intensity, the driving circuit 120 can generate a driving current with proper intensity and control the brightness by modulating the duty ratio of the driving current.
That is, the driving circuit 120 can drive the light emitting unit 110 in a PWM mode to present a gray level lower than or equal to a predetermined gray level to reduce color shift. Also, the driving circuit 120 can drive the light emitting unit 110 in a current mode to present a gray level higher than the predetermined gray level with a better efficiency.
Therefore, in
Also, in some embodiments, in the current mode, the duty ratio of the driving current can be adjusted according to the system requirement. For example, the driving current generated by the driving circuit 120 may have a duty ratio less than 100%. Furthermore, in the PWM mode, the driving current may also have different intensities when presenting different gray levels according to the system requirement. That is, the light emitting unit 110 may also be driven with a variable driving circuit in the PWM mode.
The driving TFT 121 has a first terminal coupled to a first voltage terminal NV1 for receiving a first voltage VDD, a second terminal, and a control terminal. The emission control TFT 122 has a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the driving TFT 121, a second terminal coupled to the light emitting unit 110, and a control terminal for receiving an emission control signal SIGEM. The light emitting unit 110 has a first terminal, e.g., an anode, coupled to the second terminal of the emission control TFT 122, and a second terminal, e.g., a cathode, coupled to a second voltage terminal NV2 for receiving a second voltage VSS.
The capacitor C1 has a first terminal coupled to the control terminal of the driving TFT 121, and a second terminal. The scanning TFT 123 has a first terminal coupled to a data line DL1, a second terminal coupled to the second terminal of the capacitor C1, and a control terminal for receiving a scan signal SIGSC1 from the scan line SCL1. The capacitor C2 has a first terminal coupled to the first terminal of the driving TFT 121, and a second terminal coupled to the control terminal of the driving TFT 121. The capacitor C3 has a first terminal coupled to the first terminal of the driving TFT 121, and a second terminal coupled to the second terminal of the capacitor C1.
Also, the reset TFT 124 has a first terminal coupled to the control terminal of the driving TFT 121, a second terminal coupled to a reset voltage terminal NVRST for receiving a reset voltage VRST, and a control terminal for receiving a reset signal SIGRST. The compensation TFT 125 has a first terminal coupled to the first terminal of the reset TFT 124, a second terminal coupled to the second terminal of the driving TFT 121, and a control terminal for receiving a compensation signal SIGCMP. The compensation TFT 126 has a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the capacitor C1, a second terminal coupled to a reference voltage terminal NVREF for receiving a reference voltage VREF, and a control terminal for receiving the compensation signal SIGCMP.
Please refer to
In this case, the control terminal of the driving TFT 121 can be reset to the reset voltage VRST, and the gate to source voltage Vgs of the driving TFT 121 can be represented as the voltage difference between the reset voltage VRST and the first voltage VDD (VRST−VDD). In some embodiments, the reset voltage VRST can be low enough to turn on the driving TFT 121. For example, but not limited to, the reset voltage VRST can be (−1V), the first voltage VDD can be 8V, and the second voltage VSS can be 0V.
During the compensation operation, the scan signal SIGSC1, the emission control signal SIGEM, and the reset signal SIGRST are at a high voltage, and the scanning TFT 123, the emission control TFT 122, and the reset TFT 124 are turned off. Also, the compensation signal SIGCMP is at a low voltage, and the compensation TFTs 125 and 126 are turned on.
In this case, the second terminal of the capacitor C1 would receive the reference voltage VREF, and the control terminal of the driving TFT 121 would be coupled to (VDD-|Vth|), where Vth is the threshold voltage of the driving TFT 121. In some embodiments, the reference voltage VREF can be, for example but not limited to, 4V. Consequently, the gate to source voltage Vgs of the driving TFT 121 can be represented as (−|Vth|). By involving the threshold voltage of the driving TFT 121 to the gate to source voltage Vgs, the variation of threshold voltages of the driving TFTs in different pixels can be compensated during an emission period. In one embodiment, the emission period is the period when the emission control signal SIGEM is at the low level to turn the emission control TFT 122 on, and the light emitting unit 110 emits light.
During the scan operation, the compensation signal SIGCMP and the reset signal SIGRST are at the high voltage, and the compensation TFT 125, the compensation TFT 126, and the reset TFT 124 are turned off. Also, the scan signal SIGSC1 and the emission control signal SIGEM are at the low voltage, the scanning TFT 123 and the emission control TFT 122 are turned on, and the control terminal of the driving TFT 121 would receive the data signal SIGDATA on the data line DL1 through the scanning TFT 123 and the capacitor C1.
In this case, the control terminal of the driving TFT 121 would be coupled to VDD−|Vth|+(Vdata−VREF)×C1/(C1+C2), and the gate to source voltage of the driving TFT 121 would be VDD−|Vth|+(Vdata−VREF)×C1/(C1+C2)−VDD, that is, (Vdata−VREF)×C1/(C1+C2)−|Vth|, where Vdata may be the voltage applied from the data line DL1 through the scanning TFT 123 when the scanning TFT 123 on is turned on with the scan signal SIGSC1 being at the low level. Since the gate to source voltage Vgs of the driving TFT 121 is independent of the first voltage VDD, the issue of non-uniform distribution of the first voltage VDD over the display device 10 can be reduced.
In
However, in some embodiments, the driving circuit 120 can drive the light emitting unit 110 in the current mode when representing gray levels of higher brightness. In this case, the voltage of the data signal SIGDATA is determined according to the gray level to be presented. For example, when the driving TFT 121 is p-type, the voltage of the data signal SIGDATA that corresponds to a higher gray level would be lower than the voltage of the data signal SIGDATA that corresponds to a lower gray level. When the driving TFT 121 is N-type, the voltage of the data signal SIGDATA that corresponds to a higher gray level would be higher than the voltage of the data signal SIGDATA that corresponds to a lower gray level, but not limited thereto.
In some embodiments, the voltage of the data signal SIGDATA can be held by the capacitor C2. Therefore, the scanning TFT 123 can be turned off after the capacitor C2 has sampled the data signal SIGDATA. For example, the pixel 100(1,1) can perform a hold operation after the scan operation. There may be a gap between the hold operation and the scan operation, but not limited thereto. During the hold operation, the scan signal SIGSC1 can be at the high voltage and the emission control signal SIGEM can be at the low voltage. Therefore, the scanning TFT 123 would be turned off, the emission control TFT 122 can still be turned on, and the light emitting unit 110 can keep emitting light accordingly.
In
The reset TFT 324 has a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the capacitor C1, a second terminal coupled to the first terminal of the capacitor C1, and a control terminal for receiving the reset signal SIGRST. The compensation TFT 325 has a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the reset TFT 324, a second terminal coupled to the second terminal of the driving TFT 121, and a control terminal for receiving the compensation signal SIGCMP.
Also, during the compensation operation, the reset signal SIGRST can be at the high voltage, the scan signal SIGSC1 and the compensation signal SIGCMP can be at the low voltage, and the data line DL1 can be at the reference voltage VREF. Therefore, the reset TFT 324 will be turned off, and the scanning TFT 123 and the compensation TFT 325 will be turned on. Therefore, the second terminal of the capacitor C1 can receive the reference voltage VREF through the scanning TFT 123.
Consequently, the pixel 300 can be implemented by fewer TFTs, and the area of the display device 10 can be reduced by adopting pixels 300. In some embodiments, the pixel 300 can be adopted by the display device 10, the display device 10 may further include a signal control circuit 330 for providing the reference voltage VREF, the reset voltage VRST, and the data signal SIGDATA to the data line DL1 according to the operations of the pixel 300.
Although the pixels 100(1,1) to 100(M,N), 200, and 300 are implemented with P-type transistors, the pixels of the display device can also be implemented with N-type transistors in some embodiments.
In
In some embodiments, to perform the reset operation and the compensation operation, the reference voltage VREF applied to the driving circuit 420 can be 1V, and the reset voltage VRST applied to the driving circuit 420 can be 9V in case that the first voltage VDD is 8V and the second voltage VSS is 0V. In other embodiments, the reference voltage VREF may be ranged from 0.5V to 2V (0.5V≤VREF≤2V), and the reset voltage VRST may be ranged from 6V to 12V (6V≤VREF≤12V), such as 8V or 10V, but not limited thereto.
In summary, the display device provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure can drive the pixels in both current mode and PWM mode according to the gray level to be presented. That is, the driving circuit of the pixel can drive the light emitting unit in a PWM mode to present a gray level of low brightness to reduce color shift, and can drive the light emitting unit in a current mode to present a gray level of high brightness to deliver a better power efficiency.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the disclosure. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
This non-provisional application claims priority of U.S. provisional application No. 62/849,164, filed on May 17, 2019, included herein by reference in its entirety.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
20060156121 | Chung | Jul 2006 | A1 |
20140198091 | Shin | Jul 2014 | A1 |
20160093251 | Chung | Mar 2016 | A1 |
20200111418 | Nam | Apr 2020 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
107993612 | May 2018 | CN |
109389947 | Feb 2019 | CN |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20200365074 A1 | Nov 2020 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
62849164 | May 2019 | US |