These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims and accompanying drawings, where:
Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts.
According to the foregoing discussion, one purpose of the present invention is making the driving sequence of the display blocks and the backlight blocks in a LCD adjustable; thus, the driving sequence of the backlight blocks are not tied to the image scanning frequency of the LCD. The flicker of the LCD can thereby be reduced when images are displayed.
For implementing the foregoing described purpose, the framework of the conventional LCD must be changed.
The data driver 204 and gate driver groups 206a-206d are controlled by a driver control circuit 212. In the scan-backlight control mode, the driver control circuit 212 controls the gate driver groups 206a-206d and the data driver 204 to respectively drive and charge the display blocks 202a-202d in an adjustable driving sequence, wherein the driver control circuit uses a gate sequence signal 220 to control the driving sequence of the display blocks 202a-202d.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the gate sequence signal 220 comprises several bits, and a code formed of the bits represents the driving sequence of the display blocks 202a-202d. For example, the driving sequence of the display blocks 202a-202d has twenty-four variations; therefore, the gate sequence signal 220 should comprise at least five bits, wherein, the code “00001” represents the driving sequence of display blocks 202a, 202b, 202d and 202c, and the code “10011” represents the driving sequence of display blocks 202d, 202c, 202b and 202a. Thus, the gate driver groups 206a-206d and the data driver 204 can drive and charge the display blocks 202a-202d according to the driving sequence represented by the gate sequence signal.
In another embodiment of the present invention, each of the gate driver groups 206a-206d has a unique address code. One of the gate driver groups 206a-206d should operate when its address code appears in the gate sequence signal 220. For example, two bits for each of the display blocks 202a-202d are needed to form the address code of each of the display blocks 202a-202d, such as “00” for the display block 202a, “01” for the display block 202b, “10” for the display block 202c and “11” for the display block 202d. Thus, the gate sequence signal 220 should comprise at least two bits. When the gate sequence signal 220 appears as “00”, the gate driver group 206a drives the display block 202a and then the data driver 204 charges the display block 202a. Similarly, when the gate sequence signal 220 appears as “01”, the gate driver group 206b drives the display block 202b, when the gate sequence signal 220 appears as “10”, the gate driver group 206c drives the display block 202c, and when the gate sequence signal 220 appears as “11”, the gate driver group 206d drives the display block 202d. The driving sequence can be adjusted by altering the appearance sequence of the address code of the gate driver groups 206a-206d in the gate sequence signal 220.
In the LCD scan-backlight control mode, the backlight blocks 208a-208d correspond to the display blocks 202a-202d in position, and the backlight blocks 208a-208d are turned on and off in the driving sequence identical to the display blocks 202a-202d. However, the time point for turning on the backlight blocks 208a-208d may be later than the time point for driving the display blocks 202a-202d by delaying a liquid crystal charging period; therefore, the turning on and off of the backlight blocks 208a-208d must be controlled by a backlight control circuit 214.
The backlight control circuit 214 references a backlight sequence signal 222 outputted from the driver control circuit 212 to determine the driving sequence of the backlight blocks 208a-208d. In an embodiment of the present invention, the backlight sequence signal 222 comprises several bits, and a code formed of the bits represents the driving sequence of the backlight blocks 208a-208d. For example, the driving sequence of the backlight blocks 208a-208d has twenty-four variations; therefore, the backlight sequence signal 222 should comprise at least five bits, wherein, the code “00001” represents the driving sequence of backlight blocks 208a, 208b, 202d and 208c and the code “10011” represents the driving sequence of backlight blocks 208d, 208c, 208b and 208a. Thus, the backlight driver groups 210a-210d can turn on the display blocks 202a-202d according to the driving sequence represented by the backlight sequence signal. Furthermore, the length of the turning on period of each of the backlight blocks may also be represented in the backlight sequence signal.
The information of the turning-on time point and turning-off time point of each of the backlight blocks 208a-208d may also be designated by the backlight sequence signal 222. In another embodiment of the present invention, the backlight sequence signal 222 may comprise at least eight bytes, wherein the first, the third, the fifth and the seventh bytes respectively represent the time points for turning on the backlight blocks 208a-208d, and the second, the fourth, the sixth and the eighth bytes respectively represent the time points for turning off the backlight blocks 208a-208d. Thus, the backlight driver groups 210a-210d can turn on and off the display blocks 202a-202d according to the time points designated by the backlight sequence signal 222.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.