Patent Application
20080117124
This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all benefits accruing under 35 U.S.C. § 19 from an application for PLASMA DISPLAY PANEL earlier filed in the Korean Intellectual Property Office on 17 Nov. 2006 and there duly assigned Serial No. 10-2006-0114082.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Plasma Display Panel (PDP), and more particularly, the present invention relates to a PDP that can prevent a short circuit from occurring between a dummy terminal portion and an oblique terminal line portion at an inactive region where electrode terminals are connected to flexible signal lines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a Plasma Display Panel (PDP) displays an image using a discharge. Since the PDP is excellent in terms of display quality, such as display capacity, luminance, contrast, afterimage, and view angle, and is slimmer compared to a television using a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), it is spotlighted as a next generation display device.
The PDP includes a front substrate on which sustain and scan electrodes are formed and a rear substrate on which an address electrode is formed. The front and rear substrates are sealed together with barrier ribs interposed therebetween. Discharge cells are defined by the barrier ribs and an inert gas, such as a mixture gas of Ne and Xe, is injected into the discharge cells.
When address and scan voltages are respectively supplied to the address and scan electrodes, a wall charge is generated between the address and scan electrodes and the discharge cells that will be turned on by the address discharge are selected. In addition, when a sustain pulse is supplied to the sustain and scan electrodes, electrons and ions generated by the sustain and scan electrodes travel between the sustain and scan electrodes. A sustain discharge occurs in a selected discharge cell when a sum of the sustain pulse and the wall voltage formed by the wall charge generated from the address discharge exceeds a firing voltage. Vacuum ultraviolet light generated in the discharge cells excite phosphors, and the excited phosphors emit visible light, thereby displaying an image on the PDP.
In the PDP, a dielectric layer covers the sustain and scan electrodes provided on an entire surface of the front substrate to allow for the sustain discharge using a low voltage by generating and accumulating wall charges and to protect the sustain and scan electrodes for the discharge. When the front and rear substrate are sealed together, the barrier ribs provided on the rear substrate closely contact the dielectric layer, thereby defining the discharge cells.
As the PDP becomes more finely pitched, for example, a 42-inch PDP with Full High Definition (FHD) having a resolution of 1920*1080 pixels, an area of each discharge cell is reduced. Therefore, gaps between the address electrodes at the active region where the image is displayed are reduced.
Furthermore, as the PDP becomes more finely pitched, the gaps between the address electrodes become much narrower since a large number of electrode terminals connected to the address electrodes are disposed in a limited space of the active region. Also, as the gaps of electrode terminals become narrower, a gap between an oblique terminal line portion and a dummy terminal portion of the electrode terminals is further reduced.
The electrode terminals are mainly formed of silver (Ag). In the electrode terminals formed of the silver (Ag), a silver migration phenomenon occurs as time goes by.
Therefore, in a conventional PDP, a short circuit may occur between an oblique terminal line portion and a dummy terminal portion of the electrode terminals due to the silver migration. According to experimental product manufacturing data regarding this, it has been noted that 3% of all products have suffered from a short circuit between the oblique terminal line portion and the dummy terminal portion of the electrode terminals.
Therefore, there is a need for a PDP that can fundamentally prevent the short circuit from occurring between the oblique terminal line portion and the dummy terminal portion of the electrode terminals.
The present invention provides a Plasma Display Panel (PDP) that can prevent a short circuit from occurring between a dummy terminal portion and an oblique terminal line portion at an inactive region where electrode terminals are connected to the flexible signal lines.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a PDP includes first and second substrates facing each other, barrier ribs disposed between the first and second substrates to define discharge cells, and a plurality of electrodes extending in a direction between the first and second substrates in accordance with the discharge cells.
The plurality of electrodes includes an oblique terminal line portion converged to a portion in an inactive region where an image is not displayed while obliquely extending from the electrode in an active region where an image is to be displayed, a terminal connection portion extending from the oblique terminal line portion and connected to a driving circuit board, and a dummy terminal portion adjacent to the terminal connection portion in parallel to protect a pattern of the terminal connection portion.
An adjacent region of the dummy terminal portion with respect to the oblique terminal line portion is cut away to provide a predetermined space between the dummy terminal portion, the terminal connection portion, and the oblique terminal line portion.
The dummy terminal portion may have one or more terminals disposed in parallel.
The electrodes in the active region may be address electrodes.
The electrodes may be formed of silver (Ag).
Adjacent portions of all terminals of the dummy terminal portion with respect to the oblique terminal line portion may be cut away to have a length difference from the terminal connection portion.
Length differences between the terminals of the dummy terminal portion and the terminal connection portion are different from each other.
Adjacent portions of some terminals of the dummy terminal portion with respect to the oblique terminal line portion may be cut away to have a length difference from the terminal connection portion.
Adjacent portions of some of terminals of the dummy terminal portion, which are closer to the terminal connection portion, with respect to the oblique terminal line portion are cut away.
Length differences between the cut away terminals and the terminal connection portion may be different from each other.
The distance between the dummy terminal portion and the terminal connection portion may be greater than a distance between terminals of the terminal connection portion.
The distance between the dummy terminal portion and the terminal connection portion may be equal to a width of a terminal of the dummy terminal portion.
A more complete appreciation of the present invention and many of the attendant advantages thereof will be readily apparent as the present invention becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference symbols indicate the same or similar components, wherein:
The present invention is described more fully below with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which exemplary embodiments of the present invention are shown. The present invention 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 concept of the present invention to those skilled in the art.
Referring to
Referring to
Address electrodes 3, sustain electrodes, and scan electrodes are disposed between the rear and front substrates 1 and 2 relative to the discharge cells.
The address electrodes 3 extend in a first direction (the y-axis in the drawing) on the rear substrate 1. The address electrodes 3 are spaced apart from each other by a predetermined gap in a second direction (the x-axis in the drawing) in accordance with the discharge cells.
The sustain and scan electrodes are formed on the front substrate 2 and extend in the second direction (the x-axis in the drawing) crossing the address electrodes 3. The sustain and scan electrodes are spaced apart from each other by a predetermined gap in the first direction (y-axis in the drawing) relative to the discharge cells.
Barrier ribs define the discharge cells formed between the rear and front substrate 1 and 2 in either a stripe pattern or a matrix pattern. A phosphor layer is formed on an inner surface of each of the discharge cells defined by the barrier ribs to emit visible light using the plasma discharge.
In order to realize the plasma discharge, voltages are supplied to the electrodes. The address electrodes 3 are connected to an address driving circuit board by flexible signal lines C.
The address electrodes 3 are spaced apart from each other by a predetermined gap in the second direction (the x-axis in the drawing) in the active region. In addition, in the inactive region where the image is not displayed, the address electrodes 3 are arranged with the following structure in order to be connected with the flexible signal lines C.
As shown in
The dummy terminal portion 10 is formed simultaneously with the forming a pattern of the terminal connection portion 11 in order to protect the terminal connection portion 11 that is an active region during the forming of the electrode pattern. An overall width of the dummy terminal portion 10 may vary according to the design. Generally, one or more dummy terminals are disposed in parallel.
The address electrodes 3 having the dummy terminal portion 10 are usually formed of silver (Ag). Therefore, a silver migration phenomenon may occur between the electrode terminals due to the inherent properties of silver (Ag), as time goes by. Furthermore, as the PDP becomes more highly pitched, for example, a 42-inch PDP with Full High Definition (FHD) has a resolution of 1920*1080 pixels, gaps between the address electrodes 3 are reduced. As a result, the silver migration phenomenon may occur between the dummy terminal portion 10 and the oblique terminal line portion 12. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the dummy terminal portion 10 is formed with the following structure.
That is, an adjacent region of the dummy terminal portion 10 with respect to the oblique terminal line portion 12 is cut away to form a predetermined space between the dummy terminal portion 10, the terminal connection portion 11, and the oblique terminal line portion 12. Describing in more detail, portions of all the terminals of the dummy terminal portions 10, which are close to the oblique terminal line portion 12, are cut away. Therefore, there may be a length difference (D1) between each terminal of the dummy terminal portion 10 and the terminal connection portion 11. As the length difference D1 increases, the chance of the occurrence of the silver migration is reduced. However, the length difference D1 may be kept to a predetermined level so that the dummy terminal portion 10 functions to protect the terminal connection portion 11. The terminals of the dummy terminal portion 10 may be formed to be different in the length difference D1 with the terminal connection portion 11.
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
Although the above-described embodiments of the present invention are described in connection with the address electrode 3, it is apparent that the same basic concept of the present invention may be applied to the scan or sustain electrodes.
As described above, the dummy terminal portion of the PDP of the present invention is designed to provide a predetermined space between the dummy terminal portion, the terminal connection portion, and the oblique terminal line portion. Therefore, compared to conventional PDPs, the silver migration generated between the oblique terminal line portion and the dummy terminal portion at the inactive region where the electrode terminals are connected to the flexible signal lines is significantly suppressed. Therefore, short circuits between electrodes can be prevented.
Although exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail hereinabove, it should be clearly understood that many variations and/or modifications of the basic inventive concept taught herein still fall within the spirit and scope of the present invention, as defined by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2006-0114082 | Nov 2006 | KR | national |
