The present disclosure claims priority of the Chinese patent application No. 201910208916.9 filed on Mar. 19, 2019, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The disclosure relates to the field of display technology, and particularly, relates to a display panel, a driving control method of the display panel, a driving control circuit of the display panel and a display device.
A gate driver is usually provided on a side of an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display panel, and includes cascaded shift registers. Each of the shift registers supplies a light emission enable signal (also referred to as an EM signal) to a respective row of pixels, and all of the shift registers are cascaded. When the shift register outputs an inactive voltage, an operation of writing data voltage is performed on the respective row of pixels; and when the shift register outputs an active voltage, the respective row of pixels emit light. In this way, the operation of writing data voltage is sequentially performed on a first row of pixels to a last row of pixels, and then the first row of pixels to the last row of pixels emit light according to the written data voltage. When the OLED display panel is applied to a foldable display device and performs a partial screen display (for example, a half-screen display), all rows of the pixels are driven to display, in which rows of pixels, that are not required to display, display black. This may cause a waste of power consumption.
An embodiment of the present disclosure provides a display panel including a display area having a plurality of rows of pixels, the display area being divided into N sub-display areas, N being equal to or greater than 2 and being an integer, the display panel further including a gate driver, the gate driver including N shift register groups in one-to-one correspondence with the N sub-display areas, each shift register group including a plurality of shift registers which are cascaded and in one-to-one correspondence with a plurality of rows of pixels within the corresponding sub-display area, each shift register being configured to output a waveform including a first level for controlling a row of pixels corresponding to the shift register to emit light and a second level for controlling the row of pixels corresponding to the shift register to not emit light.
In some embodiments, each of the sub-display areas includes a same number of rows of pixels.
In some embodiments, 2≤N≤4.
In some embodiments, N=2.
An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a driving control method for the display panel described above. The driving control method includes steps of: receiving a luminance parameter; determining a first waveform provided to a first shift register group for a frame period of a current frame according to the luminance parameter, the first waveform including a second level pulse for controlling a writing of a data voltage and at least one second level pulse thereafter for adjusting luminance, and different luminance parameters corresponding to different first waveforms; determining a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where and k is an integer; and for the frame period of the current frame, providing the determined first waveform to the first shift register group, and providing, from k=2 to k=N, the determined k-th waveform to the k-th shift register group.
In some embodiments, each frame period T includes Q row periods T1; and in each frame period, the second level pulse for controlling the writing of the data voltage is first provided to the first shift register group, and then, for each of the second to N-th shift register groups, when time m*T1 elapses from a beginning of providing the second level pulse for controlling the writing of the data voltage to a immediately previous shift register group with regard to the shift register group, the second level pulse for controlling the writing of the data voltage is provided to the shift register group, where m is the number of shift registers in the immediately previous shift register group with regard to the shift register group, and T1 is a delay from receiving a waveform to starting outputting the waveform for each shift register.
In some embodiments, the step of determining a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, includes: the k-th waveform including a first portion and a second portion following the first portion, the first portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the previous frame, and the second portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups.
In some embodiments, after determining a first waveform provided to a first shift register group for a frame period of a current frame according to the luminance parameter, the driving control method further includes steps of: determining whether the luminance parameter of the current frame is equal to the luminance parameter of the previous frame; if a result of the determining is negative, performing the step of determining a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame; and if the result of the determining is positive, determining the k-th waveform provided to the k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame.
In some embodiments, the step of determining the k-th waveform provided to the k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, includes: the k-th waveform including a third portion and a fourth portion following the third portion, the third portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, and the fourth portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame.
An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a driving control circuit for the display panel described above. The driving control circuit is configured to provide a driving control signal to the display panel. The driving control circuit includes: a first receiving sub-circuit configured to receive a luminance parameter; a first waveform determining sub-circuit configured to determine a first waveform provided to a first shift register group for a frame period of a current frame according to the luminance parameter, the first waveform including a second level pulse for controlling a writing of a data voltage and at least one second level pulse thereafter for adjusting luminance, and different luminance parameters corresponding to different first waveforms; a second waveform determining sub-circuit configured to determine a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where N≥k≥2 and k is an integer; an output sub-circuit configured to, for the frame period of the current frame, provide the determined first waveform to the first shift register group, and provide, from k=2 to k=N, the determined k-th waveform to the k-th shift register group.
In some embodiments, the driving control circuit further includes a second receiving sub-circuit configured to receive a full-screen display mode instruction. The full-screen display mode instruction specifies that: each frame period T includes Q row periods T1; and in each frame period, the second level pulse for controlling the writing of the data voltage is first provided to the first shift register group, and then, for each of the second to N-th shift register groups, when time m*T1 elapses from a beginning of providing the second level pulse for controlling the writing of the data voltage to a immediately previous shift register group with regard to the shift register group, the second level pulse for controlling the writing of the data voltage is provided to the shift register group, where m is the number of shift registers in the immediately previous shift register group with regard to the shift register group, and T1 is a delay from receiving a waveform to starting outputting the waveform for each shift register.
In some embodiments, determining a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, includes: the k-th waveform including a first portion and a second portion following the first portion, the first portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the previous frame, and the second portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups.
In some embodiments, the second waveform determining sub-circuit is further configured to: determine whether the luminance parameter of the current frame is equal to the luminance parameter of the previous frame, if a result of the determining is negative, determine a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, and if the result of the determining is positive, determine the k-th waveform provided to the k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame.
In some embodiments, determining the k-th waveform provided to the k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, includes: the k-th waveform including a third portion and a fourth portion following the third portion, the third portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, and the fourth portion of the k-th waveform being composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame.
An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a driving control method for the display panel described above. The driving control method includes: receiving a partial display mode instruction that specifies sub-display areas for displaying and sub-display areas for not displaying; sequentially providing second level pulses to shift register groups corresponding to the sub-display areas for displaying; and providing a continuous second level to shift register groups corresponding to the sub-display areas for not displaying.
An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a driving control circuit for the display panel described above. The driving control circuit includes: a receiving sub-circuit configured to receive a partial display mode instruction that specifies sub-display areas for displaying and sub-display areas for not displaying; and an output sub-circuit configured to sequentially provide second level pulses to shift register groups corresponding to the sub-display areas for displaying, and to provide a continuous second level to shift register groups corresponding to the sub-display areas for not displaying.
An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a display device including the display panel described above and the driving control circuit described above for providing a driving control signal to the display panel.
In order to enable those skilled in the art to better understand technical solutions of the present disclosure, the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to accompanying drawings and specific implementations.
A display panel 1 is provided according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, the display panel 1 is an OLED display panel.
In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the display panel 1 includes a display area having a plurality of rows of pixels, and the display area is divided into N sub-display areas, where N≥2 and N is an integer. Each of the N sub-display areas includes a plurality of rows of pixels, that is, an i-th sub-display area includes ni rows of pixels and Σi=1N ni=Q, where 1≤i≤N and i is an integer, and ni and Q are both positive integers. It should be understood that Q indicates the total number of rows of pixels included in the display area of the display panel 1. The display panel 1 further includes a gate driver, and the gate driver includes N shift register groups that are in one-to-one correspondence with the sub-display areas, that is, first to N-th shift register groups are in one-to-one correspondence with first to N-th sub-display areas. Each of the N shift register groups includes a plurality of shift registers which are cascaded and in one-to-one correspondence with the rows of pixels within the corresponding sub-display area, that is, an i-th shift register group includes ni shift registers that are in one-to-one correspondence with the ni rows of pixels included in the i-th sub-display area and are cascaded. Each shift register is configured to output a first level indicating a row of pixels corresponding to the shift register to emit light, and output a second level indicating the row of pixels corresponding to the shift register to not emit light. The shift register groups are insulated from each other.
Herein, the first level refers to a voltage signal having a first level, and the second level refers to a voltage signal having a second level. It is understood that the first level is different from the second level.
It should be noted that, in an embodiment of the present disclosure, providing or outputting a waveform to a shift register group means providing a voltage signal conforming to the waveform to a first shift register of the shift register group.
In addition, the first shift register of the shift register group outputs a received waveform to the corresponding row of pixels with a delay of one row period, and then remaining shift registers in the shift register group each outputs the received waveform to a corresponding row of pixels with a sequential delay of one row period.
In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the first level is a low level, the second level is a high level, and the second level pulse is a high level pulse in which the first level is a reference voltage and the second level is a peak voltage, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto.
In some embodiments, each sub-display area includes a same number of rows of pixels, such that an arrangement of the display panel 1 is simpler and a driving algorithm for driving the display panel 1 may also be simpler. In some embodiments, the sub-display areas may include different numbers of rows of pixels, respectively.
In some embodiments, 2≤N≤4. If the number of the sub-display areas is too large, the complexity of the arrangement of the display panel 1 will increase. In some embodiments, N=2.
In an exemplary embodiment as described below, the display panel 1 includes a display area having 1000 rows of pixels, and the display area is divided into 2 sub-display areas.
As described above,
As described above, in the display panel 1 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the display area including a plurality of rows of pixels is divided into several sub-display areas, and each of the sub-display areas corresponds to one shift register group. In this case, when the display panel 1 is driven to perform display, for a sub-display area not required to display, it may causes the sub-display area not to perform display by not providing the second level pulse to the shift register group corresponding to the sub-display area while continuously outputting the second level by the shift register group corresponding to the sub-display area; and for sub-display areas required to display, it may causes the sub-display areas to display by sequentially providing second level pulses to the shift register groups corresponding to the sub-display areas required to display according to a scanning direction. In some embodiments, the process of sequentially providing second level pulses to the shift register groups follows that: after writing data for display to a last row of pixels of a sub-display area that displays earlier is completed, writing the data for display to a first row of pixels of a sub-display area that displays immediately later is started. In some embodiments, the process of sequentially providing second level pulses to the shift register groups follows at least that: after starting writing the data for display to a last row of pixels of a sub-display area that displays earlier, writing the data for display to a first row of pixels of a sub-display area that displays immediately later is started. Accordingly, during a period in which the second level pulses are received (or in a preceding portion of a period during which the second level pulses are received) by a row of pixels, data voltage indicating data for display is written to the row of pixels through a data line.
An embodiment according to the present disclosure provides a driving control method for the above-described display panel 1.
In step S11, a partial display mode instruction is received, and the partial display mode instruction specifies sub-display areas for displaying and sub-display areas for not displaying.
In step S12, the second level pulses are sequentially provided to shift register groups corresponding to the sub-display areas for displaying.
In step S13, a continuous second level is provided to shift register groups corresponding to the sub-display areas for not displaying.
An embodiment according to the present disclosure provides a driving control circuit for the above-described display panel 1.
As shown in
By driving the display panel according to the embodiment of the present disclosure using the driving control method or the driving control circuit as described above, when a sub-display area is not required to display, the second level pulses may be not provided to a shift register group corresponding to the sub-display area, and data voltage may be not written to the rows of pixels in the sub-display area, thereby reducing power consumption for display of the display panel.
The case shown in
The scanning direction is from top to bottom according to the current view of
In the accompanying drawings of the present disclosure, the second level pulses (taking high level pulses as an example) which are marked with black dots each is a second level pulses controlling the writing of the data voltage to a row of pixels. An example of the driving control circuit or the driving control chip in the present disclosure is a timing controller.
When the display panel 1 performs full-screen display, the above display panel 1 according to the embodiments of the present disclosure is driven by a driving control signal generated using a conventional driving control circuit or driving control method, and a luminance parameter indicating display luminance of the display panel may be adjusted by adjusting the second level pulses.
For example, still taking the display panel 1 shown in
In addition, the conventional driving control circuit or driving control method can only configure waveforms provided to the shift register groups in one frame period.
For example, still taking the display panel 1 shown in
It should be noted that, since the shift register groups sequentially receive and output waveforms as described above, an actual frame period of one frame is different from the frame period of the frame for the shift register groups except the first shift register group. Taking the display panel 1 shown in
Therefore, according to the above manner of configuring the waveforms provided to the respective shift register groups, taking the display panel 1 shown in
However, in a case where the luminance parameters of the two adjacent frames are different from each other, taking the first frame and the second frame in
In order to solve the technical problem of the difference in the display luminance of the sub-display areas described above, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a driving control method for the display panel 1 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the driving control method includes the following steps S22 to S25 as shown in
In step S22, a luminance parameter is received. Specifically, for example, when a user adjusts a luminance parameter of a mobile phone, a control circuit of the mobile phone sends the luminance parameter to the driving control circuit of the display panel 1.
In step S23, a first waveform provided to a first shift register group for a frame period of a current frame is determined according to the luminance parameter. The first waveform includes a second level pulse controlling writing of a data voltage and at least one second level pulse thereafter for adjusting luminance, and different luminance parameters corresponds to different first waveforms.
That is, the first waveform EM1 provided to the first shift register group is determined by the luminance parameter. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the first waveform includes uniform continuous square wave pulses, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto. In addition, the number of the second level pulses and the duration of a second level pulse are not particularly limited, as long as the first waveform includes the second level pulse controlling writing of data for display and the second level pulse for adjusting the luminance.
In step S24, a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame is determined according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame. The k-th waveform includes a first portion and a second portion following the first portion, the first portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the previous frame, and the second portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups. It is understood that Q indicates the total number of rows of pixels included in the display area of the display panel 1, i.e., the number of shift registers in the display panel 1.
In step S25, for the frame period of the current frame, the determined first waveform is provided to the first shift register group, and the determined k-th waveform is provided to the k-th shift register group from k=2 to k=N.
In some embodiments, as shown in
Taking the display panel 1 shown in
In some embodiments, configuring the waveforms for the shift register groups according to the method shown in
Specifically, as shown in
In step S31, it is determined whether the luminance parameter of the current frame is equal to the luminance parameter of the previous frame.
In step S32, if a result of the determining in step S31 is negative, the step of determining a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame is performed, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame. In this case, the k-th waveform includes a first portion and a second portion following the first portion, the first portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the previous frame, and the second portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where 2≤k≤N, and p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups.
In step S33, if the result of the determining is positive, the k-th waveform provided to the k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame is determined according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame. In this case, the k-th waveform includes a third portion and a fourth portion following the third portion, the third portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, and the fourth portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where 2≤k≤N, and p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups.
Therefore, the calculation amount required for the driving control method can be greatly reduced, and the power consumption is reduced.
In addition, it is easy to understand that the driving control method is also applicable to a case in which the luminance parameters of two adjacent frames are the same.
It can be seen that, the driving control method can ensure that the luminance parameters of the sub-display areas are the same by only arranging the timing sequence in the frame period of the current frame.
An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a driving control circuit for the above-described display panel 1. The driving control circuit is configured to provide a driving control signal to the display panel 1, and the driving control circuit is configured to implement the above-described driving control method. As shown in
The second receiving sub-circuit 22 corresponds to step S22 in the driving control method and is configured to receive the luminance parameter.
The first waveform determining sub-circuit 23 is configured to determine the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame according to the luminance parameter. The first waveform includes a second level pulse controlling the writing of the data voltage and at least one second level pulse thereafter for adjusting luminance, and different luminance parameters correspond to different first waveforms. The first waveform determining sub-circuit 23 corresponds to step S23 in the driving control method.
The second waveform determining sub-circuit 24 is configured to determine the k-th waveform provided to the k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame. The k-th waveform includes a first portion and a second portion following the first portion, the first portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the previous frame, and the second portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where and p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups. The second waveform determining sub-circuit 24 corresponds to step S24 in the driving control method.
The output sub-circuit 25 is configured to, for the frame period of the current frame, provide the determined first waveform to the first shift register group, and provide, from k=2 to k=N, the k-th waveform determined by the second waveform determining sub-circuit 24 to the k-th shift register group. That is, the output sub-circuit 25 realizes the outputting of the waveforms. The output sub-circuit 25 corresponds to step S25 in the driving control method.
In some embodiments, as shown in
In some embodiments, the second waveform determining sub-circuit 24 may be further configured to determine whether the luminance parameters of two adjacent frames are the same.
In particular, in some embodiments, the second waveform determining sub-circuit 24 is configured to: determine whether the luminance parameter of the current frame is equal to the luminance parameter of the previous frame, and if a result of the determining is negative, perform the step of determining a k-th waveform provided to a k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, according to a first waveform provided to the first shift register group for a frame period of a previous frame and the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame. In this case, the k-th waveform includes a first portion and a second portion following the first portion, the first portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the previous frame, and the second portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where and p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups.
The second waveform determining sub-circuit 24 is further configured to, if the result of the determining is positive, determine the k-th waveform provided to the k-th shift register group for the frame period of the current frame according to the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame. In this case, the k-th waveform includes a third portion and a fourth portion following the third portion, the third portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a last p/Q of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, and the fourth portion of the k-th waveform is composed of a first (1−p/Q) of the first waveform provided to the first shift register group for the frame period of the current frame, where and p is the number of shift registers included in the first to (k−1)-th shift register groups.
In some embodiments, a register may be provided in the driving control circuit. The register is configured to set parameters of the waveform provided to the shift register group. Taking the first waveform and the second waveform (each of which includes four second level pulses for one frame period) shown in
As shown in
As shown in
A case where four second level pulses are included in one frame period is illustrated in the embodiment of the present disclosure (e.g., as shown in
In the case where the display panel according to the embodiments of the present disclosure is driven to perform a full-screen display by using the driving control circuit or the driving control method according to the embodiments of the present disclosure, the luminance parameters of the sub-display areas can be always identical in the actual frame period of a same frame for the sub-display areas even if the luminance parameters change for different frame periods.
An embodiment of the present disclosure provide a display device including the display panel according to embodiments of the present disclosure and the driving control circuit according to embodiments of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, the display device may include an OLED display sub-circuit, a foldable mobile phone, a foldable tablet, and the like.
It will be understood that the above embodiments are merely exemplary embodiments for illustrating the principles of the present disclosure, and the present disclosure is not limited thereto. It will be apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure, and these changes and modifications are considered within the scope of the disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201910208916.9 | Mar 2019 | CN | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2019/126284 | 12/18/2019 | WO | 00 |