This application claims the priority to a Chinese patent application No. CN 202010338996.2 filed at the CNIPA on Apr. 26, 2020, disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present disclosure relates to the field of display technologies and, in particular, to a pixel circuit, a silicon-based display panel, and a display device.
In an existing pixel drive circuit, as a drive current for a load gradually increases, a gain between an output and an input approaches 1. With an increase of the gain, a small signal is amplified to a greater degree. Therefore, a random offset caused by individual differences of different drive circuits is significantly amplified, resulting in poor uniformity and display mura of a display panel.
In view of this, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a pixel circuit, a silicon-based display panel, and a display device, to solve the technical problem in the related art of poor display uniformity of a display panel due to individual differences of drive circuits.
In a first aspect, the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a pixel circuit. The pixel circuit includes a pixel drive circuit and a pixel compensation circuit.
The pixel drive circuit includes a drive transistor and an organic light-emitting element.
The drive transistor includes an output terminal and a body terminal, where the output terminal is connected to an anode of the organic light-emitting element, and the body terminal is connected to a body signal input terminal and configured to receive a body potential inputted from the body signal input terminal, the body potential being fixed.
A cathode of the organic light-emitting element is connected to the pixel compensation circuit at a first node, a potential of the first node is a cathode potential, and the cathode potential Vcom, a crossover voltage Voled of the organic light-emitting element, and the body potential Vbody satisfy that Vcom+Voled>Vbody.
Optionally, the body potential is adjustable.
Optionally, the pixel compensation circuit includes an operational amplifier circuit, a first transistor, a first resistor, and a second resistor. Where the second resistor has adjustable resistance.
The first resistor includes a first terminal connected to a first voltage signal input terminal and a second terminal connected to a first terminal of the second resistor, the first transistor includes an input terminal connected to a second terminal of the second resistor, an output terminal connected to a second voltage signal input terminal, and a control terminal connected to an output terminal of the operational amplifier circuit, and the operational amplifier circuit further includes a forward input terminal connected to a second node and an inverse input terminal connected to the body signal input terminal, where the second node is disposed in series between the first resistor and the second resistor.
The first node is disposed in series between the second resistor and the first transistor.
Optionally, the pixel compensation circuit further includes a voltage stabilizing capacitor.
The voltage stabilizing capacitor has a first terminal connected to the first node and a second terminal grounded.
Optionally, the drive transistor further includes an input terminal and a control terminal.
The input terminal of the first transistor is disposed in a same layer as the input terminal of the drive transistor; the output terminal of the first transistor is disposed in a same layer as the output terminal of the drive transistor; and the control terminal of the first transistor is disposed in a same layer as the control terminal of the drive transistor.
Optionally, the cathode potential Vcom, the crossover voltage Voled of the organic light-emitting element, the body potential Vbody, and a breakdown voltage Vbreakdown of the drive transistor satisfy that Vcom+Voled−Vbody<Vbreakdown.
In a second aspect, the embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a silicon-based display panel. The silicon-based display panel includes a plurality of pixel circuits described in the first aspect of the embodiments of the present disclosure.
The plurality of pixel circuits include a plurality of pixel drive circuits and pixel compensation circuits, and one of the plurality of pixel drive circuits corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of pixel circuits and one of the pixel compensation circuits corresponds to one or more pixel circuits.
Optionally, the silicon-based display panel further includes a silicon substrate and an N-type potential well layer disposed on one side of the silicon substrate, where the N-type potential well layer includes a first surface facing towards the side of the silicon substrate and a second surface facing away from the side of the silicon substrate, the first surface has a first ion doping concentration N1 and the second surface has a second ion doping concentration N2, and |N1−N2|/N1≤10%.
The plurality of pixel drive circuits are disposed in the N-type potential well layer.
Optionally, the plurality of pixel drive circuits are arranged in an array.
The silicon-based display panel includes a plurality of pixel compensation circuits arranged in an array, where each of the plurality of pixel compensation circuits corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of pixel drive circuits; or the silicon-based display panel includes a plurality of pixel compensation circuits arranged in a same column, where pixel drive circuits in a same row correspond to a same pixel compensation circuit; or the silicon-based display panel includes a plurality of pixel compensation circuits arranged in a same row, where pixel drive circuits in a same column correspond to a same pixel compensation circuit; or the silicon-based display panel includes one pixel compensation circuit, where the plurality of pixel drive circuits arranged in the array correspond to the one pixel compensation circuit.
Optionally, the silicon-based display panel further includes a display region and a non-display region surrounding the display region.
The plurality of pixel drive circuits are disposed in the display region.
When each of the plurality of pixel compensation circuits corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of pixel drive circuits, the plurality of pixel compensation circuits are disposed in the display region.
When the pixel drive circuits in the same row correspond to the same pixel compensation circuit, the pixel drive circuits in the same column correspond to the same pixel compensation circuit, or the plurality of pixel drive circuits arranged in the array correspond to the one pixel compensation circuit, the at least one pixel compensation circuit is disposed in the non-display region.
In a third aspect, the embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a display device. The display device includes the silicon-based display panel described in the second aspect of the embodiments of the present disclosure.
In the pixel circuit, the silicon-based display panel, and the display device provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure, the pixel circuit includes the pixel drive circuit and the pixel compensation circuit, where the output terminal of the drive transistor is connected to the pixel compensation circuit at the first node through the organic light-emitting element. The potential of the first node is reasonably set, so as to ensure that a sum of the cathode potential and the crossover voltage of the organic light-emitting element, that is, the voltage of the output terminal of the drive transistor, is greater than the body potential. This is different from the solution in the related art in which the voltage of the output terminal is the same as the body potential and ensures that the source-substrate voltage potential of the drive transistor can be increased so that the voltage corresponding to the body effect of the drive transistor is increased, the threshold voltage of the drive transistor is increased, the proportion of the random offset caused by the individual differences of drive circuits in the threshold voltage is decreased, the effect of the random offset on a drive current is reduced, and the uniformity of a display effect is improved.
Other features, objects, and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent from a detailed description of non-restrictive embodiments with reference to the drawings described below.
To make the objects, technical solutions, and advantages of the present disclosure clearer, the technical solutions of the present disclosure will be described completely below in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiments of the present disclosure and specific implementations. Apparently, the embodiments described herein are part, not all, of the embodiments of the present disclosure. Based on the embodiments of the present disclosure, all other embodiments obtained by those of ordinary skill in the art on the premise that no creative work is done are within the scope of the present disclosure.
Before a detailed description of the solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the principles of the embodiments of the present disclosure are described.
In the pixel drive circuit shown in
where gm denotes the channel transconductance, gmb denotes the transconductance of a body effect (as shown in
As can be seen from formulas (1) and (2), as the drive current ID gradually increases, gm is multiplied, and when gm approaches infinity, the gain approaches 1, which is shown in
To conclude, in the pixel drive circuit using the source follower circuit, the larger gain the pixel drive circuit has, the greater effect the random offset has; moreover, the random offset is irrelevant to a frequency and has a relatively great effect within any frequency range. A pixel circuit operating within a low-frequency range is also affected. Therefore, the random offset of the pixel drive circuit is one of main reasons for poor display uniformity.
In a silicon-based organic light-emitting display apparatus, the effect of the random offset can be reduced by decreasing the current. However, the display apparatus cannot only operate at low gray scales, and the current display apparatus has increasingly high requirements on brightness. Thus, the applications of conventional voltage drive circuits are greatly limited.
To solve the above-mentioned technical problem, the inventive concept of the embodiments of the present disclosure is proposed, in which the effect of the random offset on pixel display is effectively reduced without decreasing the drive current. The inventive concept of the embodiments of the present disclosure is described in detail below.
As the drive current is decreased, the gain is reduced, so that the random offset ΔV is amplified less greatly, thereby reducing the effect of the random offset. Then, an input voltage is appropriately increased according to a correspondence between an input and an output to compensate for the drive current.
Specifically, as can be seen from formula (3), the threshold voltage of the pixel drive circuit is relevant to the intrinsic threshold voltage, the random offset due to the input, and the body effect of the pixel drive circuit, and the random offset due to the input is directly embodied in the threshold voltage of the pixel drive circuit. To reduce the effect of ΔV on VTH, the body effect of the pixel drive circuit can be artificially increased, thereby reducing the effect of the random offset due to the input on the threshold voltage.
Further, the drive current of the organic light-emitting element and the input and the output of the pixel drive circuit satisfy the following requirements:
The drive current of the organic light-emitting element is expressed by formula (4). Formula (5) is obtained with formula (3) being substituted into formula (4). It can be seen from formula (5) that as the body effect increases, a squared term in the drive current decreases correspondingly and that the drive current ID decreases by a squared multiple with an increase of |VSB★. Therefore, |VSB| provides negative feedback for the drive current, that is, with an increase of |VSB|, the drive current decreases, the gain decreases, and the effect of the random offset is reduced.
Further, the current decreases with an increase of the body effect and formula (1) is rewritten as formula (6). Since gm decreases with an increase of the body effect, the coefficient term
and ΔV is infinitely weakened, further verifying that the random offset is suppressed. Meanwhile, the input voltage Vgamma is also weakened with
To ensure that the display apparatus is still applied within a high-brightness range, the input voltage may be increased, and the written voltage VIN may be configured to be
Thus, formula (6) is rewritten as formula (7):
As can be seen from formula (7), the pixel drive circuit shown in
Therefore, the pixel drive circuit shown in
The basic inventive concept of the embodiments of the present disclosure is described in detail above. Based on the basic inventive concept described above, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure are described in detail below.
Exemplarily, as shown in
Specifically, the output terminal 1111 (that is, the source terminal) and the body terminal 1112 are provided with different voltages, respectively, which may be set in a manner described below. The output terminal 1111 is connected to the anode 1121 of the organic light-emitting element 112, the cathode 1122 of the organic light-emitting element 112 is connected to the pixel compensation circuit 12 at the first node N1, and the potential of the first node N1 is the cathode potential Vcom. Considering the crossover voltage Voled of the organic light-emitting element, it is known that the voltage of the output terminal 1111 (that is, the source terminal) is Vcom+Voled. Further, the body terminal 1112 is connected to the body signal input terminal 21, the body potential Vbody is fixed, and the crossover voltage Voled of the organic light-emitting element and the body potential Vbody are configured to satisfy that Vcom+Voled>Vbody. On the one hand, it is ensured that the source voltage and the body potential of the drive transistor 111 are different and the voltage corresponding to the body effect of the drive transistor 111 can be increased. On the other hand, it is ensured that the body potential Vbody is not too high, avoiding the problem in which a backflow current is formed between the body terminal and the source terminal since the body potential is higher than the source voltage, resulting in an uncontrollable drive current of the organic light-emitting element 112.
To conclude, the pixel circuit provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure includes the pixel drive circuit and the pixel compensation circuit, where the output terminal of the pixel drive circuit is connected to the pixel compensation circuit at the first node through the organic light-emitting element. The potential of the first node is reasonably set, so as to ensure that a sum of the cathode potential and the crossover voltage of the organic light-emitting element, that is, the voltage of the output terminal of the drive transistor is greater than the body potential. This is different from the solution in the related art in which the voltage of the output terminal is the same as the body potential and ensures that the source-substrate voltage potential of the drive transistor can be increased so that the voltage corresponding to the body effect of the drive transistor is increased, the threshold voltage of the drive transistor is increased, the proportion of the random offset caused by the individual differences of drive circuits in the threshold voltage is decreased, the effect of the random offset on the drive current is reduced, and the uniformity of a display effect is improved.
Based on the preceding embodiments, the body potential Vbody is adjustable.
Exemplarily, the entire silicon-based display panel includes a plurality of pixel drive circuits 11. To ensure that the pixel circuit 10 provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure is applicable to various pixel drive circuits 11 with different random offsets, the body potential Vbody may be configured to be adjustable, that is, the body potential Vbody received by the body terminal of the drive transistor 111 is configured to be adjustable. Thus, for the pixel drive circuits 11 with different random offsets, the body effects of different pixel drive circuits 11 are different and the threshold voltages of the drive transistors 111 are decreased to different degrees, ensuring the display uniformity of the entire silicon-based display panel and avoiding the display mura.
Further, in the case where the body potential Vbody is adjustable, the cathode potential is also adjustable within a small range, that is, the voltage at the node (the first node N1) at which the cathode 1122 of the organic light-emitting element 112 is connected to the pixel compensation circuit 12 is adjustable, so as to ensure that the compensation voltage provided by the pixel compensation circuit 12 is applicable to the various pixel drive circuits 11 in the entire silicon-based display panel, ensure the display uniformity of the entire silicon-based display panel, and avoid the display mura.
How to implement the adjustable cathode potential Vcom, through the adjustable body potential Vbody is described in detail below.
Specifically, with continued reference to
Exemplarily, as shown in
As shown in formula (8), the body potential Vbody is adjustable and the resistance of the variable resistor R2 may be further adjusted so that the magnitude of the cathode potential Vcom can be changed, thereby selecting an appropriate value of (Vcom−Vbody).
If VSS=0 V,
After (Vcom−Vbody) is determined, the decreased threshold voltage of the drive transistor 111 can be obtained, thereby suppressing the random offset. Then, the input voltage Vgamma of the drive transistor 111 is changed for brightness adjustment, thereby achieving high-brightness display.
According to the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure, the body potential Vbody is configured to be adjustable. For the pixel drive circuits 11 with different random offsets, the body effects of the different pixel drive circuits 11 are different and the threshold voltages of the drive transistors 111 are decreased to different degrees, ensuring the display uniformity of the entire silicon-based display panel. Further, it is set that the pixel compensation circuit includes the operational amplifier circuit 121, the first transistor 122, the first resistor R1, and the second resistor R2, the second resistor R2 has adjustable resistance, and the inverse input terminal of the operational amplifier circuit 121 is connected to the body signal input terminal 21, so that it is ensured that the pixel compensation circuit can select an appropriate value of (Vcom−Vbody) by adjusting the resistance of the second resistor R2, and the compensation manner is simple. Meanwhile, the appropriate value of (Vcom−Vbody) is selected so that the voltage corresponding to the body effect can be appropriately increased and the effect of the random offset of the drive transistor is appropriately reduced. Therefore, the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure can be better applied to a display apparatus with the requirements for high brightness and high uniformity.
Based on the preceding embodiments, the pixel compensation circuit 12 may further include a voltage stabilizing capacitor C, and the voltage stabilizing capacitor C has a first terminal connected to the first node N1 and a second terminal grounded. The voltage stabilizing capacitor C is disposed, so as to ensure that the cathode potential Vcom at the first node N1 is stable, the voltage (Vcom−Vbody) is stable, and the voltage corresponding to the body effect is stable, thereby ensuring the stable compensation effect for the pixel drive circuit 11 and the good and stable effect of improving the display mura.
Optionally, the drive transistor 111 may further include an input terminal and a control terminal, where the input terminal of the first transistor 122 is disposed in a same layer as the input terminal of the drive transistor 111 (not shown in the figure), the output terminal of the first transistor 122 is disposed in a same layer as the output terminal of the drive transistor 111, and the control terminal of the first transistor 122 is disposed in a same layer as the control terminal of the drive transistor 111.
Exemplarily, the input terminal of the first transistor 122 is disposed in the same layer as the input terminal of the drive transistor 111, so as to ensure that the input terminal of the first transistor 122 and the input terminal of the drive transistor 111 can be manufactured in the same process, thereby ensuring that the pixel circuit is manufactured by a simple process on the basis that the pixel circuit is ensured to have a simple film structure. Similarly, the output terminal of the first transistor 122 is disposed in the same layer as the output terminal of the drive transistor 111, so as to ensure that the output terminal of the first transistor 122 and the output terminal of the drive transistor 111 can be manufactured in the same process, thereby ensuring that the pixel circuit is manufactured by a simple process on the basis that the pixel circuit is ensured to have a simple film structure. Similarly, the control terminal of the first transistor 122 is disposed in the same layer as the control terminal of the drive transistor 111, so as to ensure that the control terminal of the first transistor 122 and the control terminal of the drive transistor 111 can be manufactured in the same process, thereby ensuring that the pixel circuit is manufactured by a simple process on the basis that the pixel circuit is ensured to have a simple film structure.
Optionally, the cathode potential Vcom, the crossover voltage Voled of the organic light-emitting element, the body potential Vbody, and a breakdown voltage Vbreakdown of the drive transistor may also satisfy that Vcom+Voled−Vbody<Vbreakdown, so as to avoid that too low a body potential Vbody causes the drive transistor 111 to be broken down since VBD exceeds an extreme voltage and the display is abnormal. Therefore, it is set that Vcom+Voled−Vbody<Vbreakdown to ensure that a voltage difference between the source and body terminals of the drive transistor is lower than the breakdown voltage of the drive transistor, the drive transistor operates normally, the pixel circuit operates normally, and the silicon-based display panel can perform normal display.
Based on the same inventive concept, the embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a silicon-based display panel including a plurality of pixel circuits described in the preceding embodiments of the present disclosure. The plurality of pixel circuits include a plurality of pixel drive circuits and at least one pixel compensation circuit, and each of the plurality of pixel drive circuits corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of pixel circuits.
Exemplarily, in the silicon-based display panel provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure, the plurality of pixel circuits may share the same pixel compensation circuit, thereby ensuring a simple circuit arrangement. Alternatively, each pixel circuit may correspond to one pixel compensation circuit, ensuring that each pixel circuit is independently adjusted without affecting other pixel circuits. Alternatively, part of the plurality of pixel circuits may share the same pixel compensation circuit, ensuring both the simple circuit arrangement and independent adjustment.
A plurality of arrangements are described below.
Optionally, the plurality of pixel drive circuits 11 are arranged in an array. The silicon-based display panel 100 includes a plurality of pixel compensation circuits 12 arranged in an array, where each of the plurality of pixel compensation circuits 12 corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of pixel drive circuits 11; or the silicon-based display panel 100 includes a plurality of pixel compensation circuits 12 arranged in a same column, where pixel drive circuits 11 in a same row correspond to a same pixel compensation circuit 12; or the silicon-based display panel 100 includes a plurality of pixel compensation circuits 12 arranged in a same row, where pixel drive circuits 11 in a same column correspond to a same pixel compensation circuit 12; or the silicon-based display panel 100 includes one pixel compensation circuit 12, where the plurality of pixel drive circuits 11 arranged in the array correspond to the one pixel compensation circuit 12.
Specifically,
As shown in
Further, with continued reference to
Optionally, the silicon-based display panel provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure further includes a silicon substrate and an N-type potential well layer (not shown in the figures) on a side of the silicon substrate. The N-type potential well layer in the embodiments of the present disclosure may be a deep N-type potential well layer. The deep N-type potential well layer includes a first surface facing towards the side of the silicon substrate and a second surface facing away from the side of the silicon substrate, the first surface has a first ion doping concentration N1, and the second surface has a second ion doping concentration N2, where |N1−N2|/N1≤10%. The plurality of pixel drive circuits are disposed in the deep N-type potential well layer.
Exemplarily, the drive transistor provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure may be an N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor (NMOS) transistor. In the related art, each NMOS transistor is disposed in an independent N-type potential well and a distance between adjacent two independent N-type potential wells is greater than 6 μm in an existing 0.11 μm CMOS process. Thus, a single pixel drive circuit occupies a very large area and cannot be applied to a high-resolution display apparatus. In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the plurality of pixel drive circuits in the entire silicon-based display panel are arranged in the same deep N-type potential well layer so that the area occupied by each pixel drive circuit can be greatly reduced, the integration degree of the pixel drive circuits in the entire silicon-based display panel can be improved, and the high-resolution silicon-based display panel can be achieved. Further, the deep N-type potential well layer provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure includes the first surface facing towards the side of the silicon substrate and the second surface facing away from the side of the silicon substrate (not shown in the figures), the first surface has the first ion doping concentration N1, and the second surface has the second ion doping concentration N2, where |N1−N2|/N1≤10%. Since the ion implantation of the deep N-type potential well layer is implemented from one surface of the potential well layer, the first ion doping concentration N1 of the first surface and the second ion doping concentration N2 of the second surface satisfy that |N1−N2|/N1≤10%, thereby ensuring the uniformity in the ion implantation concentration of the entire deep N-type potential well layer and a good isolation and protection effect on the drive transistor.
Based on the same inventive concept, the embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a display device including the silicon-based display panel according to any one of the embodiments of the present disclosure. The display device provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure may be an augmented reality (AR) display apparatus or a virtual reality (VR) display apparatus or another display device with a small size and a high integration degree. The type of the display device is not limited in the embodiments of the present disclosure.
It is to be noted that the above are merely preferred embodiments of the present disclosure and the principles used therein. It is understood by those skilled in the art that the present disclosure is not limited to the embodiments described herein and that the features in the various embodiments of the present disclosure may be coupled or combined in part or in whole with each other and may be collaborated with each other and technically driven in various manners. Those skilled in the art can make various apparent modifications, adaptations, combinations, and substitutions without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, while the present disclosure has been described in detail through the above-mentioned embodiments, the present disclosure is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments and may include more other equivalent embodiments without departing from the concept of the present disclosure. The scope of the present disclosure is determined by the scope of the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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202010338996.2 | Apr 2020 | CN | national |