The invention relates to a timing control device and a control method thereof, and more particularly, to the timing control device for adjusting a data charging time when a display refresh rate is varied.
In a display panel, a gate driver can provide a plurality of gate driving signals to sequential turned on a plurality of switches of a plurality of display lines. A source driver can provide transmission data though the switches to be written into pixels of each of the display lines. After the transmission data been charged into the pixel, the switch of the pixel will be cut-off. In conventional art, the switch is implemented by a thin-film transistor (TFT). When the thin-film transistor is in a cut-off mode, there is a leakage current between a drain and a source of the TFT. When the display panel is operated in a variable refresh rate application, the displayed brightness of the display panel will be varied according to the display refresh rate. For instance, a displayed brightness of the display panel will reduce when the display refresh rate of the display panel is lowered. Hence, a performance of the display panel is reduced.
The invention provides a timing control device and a control method thereof for providing a balanced luminance of a display panel in a variable refresh rate (VRR) application.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the timing control device for the display panel includes a control circuit. The control circuit is configured to generate a plurality of gate scanning control signals and a data transmission control signal. In response to that a display refresh rate changes from a first frequency to a second frequency, the control circuit adjusts the plurality of gate scanning control signals to generate a plurality of adjusted gate scanning control signals, or adjusts the data transmission control signal to generate an adjusted data transmission control signal, for driving a display panel under the second frequency as the display refresh rate.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the control method includes: generating a plurality of gate scanning control signals and a data transmission signal; and, in response to that a display refresh rate changes from a first frequency to a second frequency, adjusting the plurality of gate scanning control signals to generate a plurality of adjusted gate scanning control signals, or adjusting the data transmission control signal to generate an adjusted data transmission control signal, for driving a display panel under the second frequency as the display refresh rate.
To sum up, the control circuit of the timing control device adjusts the gate scanning control signals or the data transmission control signal when the display refresh rate is changed from the first frequency to the second frequency. In the variable refresh rate (VRR) application, the control circuit adjusts a data charging time for the display panel when the display refresh rate is changed, a luminance of the display panel can be balanced, and display quality of the display panel can be improved.
To make the above features and advantages of the invention more comprehensible, embodiments accompanied with drawings are described in detail below.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
The term “couple (or connect)” throughout the specification (including the claims) of this application are used broadly and encompass direct and indirect connection or coupling means. For instance, if the disclosure describes a first apparatus being coupled (or connected) to a second apparatus, then it should be interpreted that the first apparatus can be directly connected to the second apparatus, or the first apparatus can be indirectly connected to the second apparatus through other devices or by a certain coupling means. In addition, terms such as “first” and “second” mentioned throughout the specification (including the claims) of this application are only for naming the names of the elements or distinguishing different embodiments or scopes and are not intended to limit the upper limit or the lower limit of the number of the elements not intended to limit sequences of the elements. Moreover, elements/components/steps with same reference numerals represent same or similar parts in the drawings and embodiments. Elements/components/notations with the same reference numerals in different embodiments may be referenced to the related description.
Please refer to
The data transmission control signal TP is a periodical signal and has a plurality of pulses. Each pulse of the data transmission control signal TP is used to indicate a write time when display data of a corresponding display line of the display panel 120 to be written into the display line. In this embodiment, a data charging time of one display line of the plurality of display lines may be determined by a time difference between a trailing edge (as a falling edge in
By adjusting the data charge time, the timing controller 110 can make the display panel 120 operated under the variable refresh rate, and can maintain the consistency of a displayed brightness. It should be noted here, when the display refresh rate of the display panel 120 is changed from a higher first frequency to a lower second frequency, a vertical blanking time is increased and the displayed brightness is reduced. In response thereto, the timing controller 110 may adjust the gate scanning control signals CLK1˜CLKN to generate a plurality of adjusted gate scanning control signals or adjust the data transmission control signal TP to generate an adjusted data transmission control signal, to increase the data charge time of the display panel 120. Such as that, the data charging time can be increased correspondingly, and the displayed brightness of the display panel 120 can be maintained.
Please refer to
In here, a plurality of pulses of the data transmission control signal TP are corresponding to a plurality of transmission data (denoted as TX_DATA) output from a driving channel. For example, the right-most data is regarding to data of the 1920th display line, and a pulse of the data transmission control signal TP indicates a write time of the 1920th display line; the second-right data is regarding to data of the 1919th display line, and another pulse of the data transmission control signal TP indicates a write time of the 1919th display line, and so on. In
When the display panel 120 changed to be operated in a second display refresh rate DFR2 is detected, and a second frequency of the second display refresh rate DFR2 is lower than a first frequency of the first display refresh rate DFR1, the control circuit 111 can delay phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1˜CLK4 to generate the plurality of adjusted gate scanning control signals CLK1′˜CLK4′, and data charging time of the display panel 120 can be increased.
Take the gate scanning control signal CLK1 as an example, the control circuit 111 can change a leading edge EG1 and a trailing edge EG2 of the gate scanning control signal CLK1 to respectively obtain an adjusted leading edge EG1′ and an adjusted trailing edge EG2′ of the adjusted gate scanning control signal CLK1′. By the adjusted trailing edge EG2′ of the adjusted gate scanning control signal CLK1′, an adjusted data charging time CT2, which is determined by a time difference between the trailing edge of the pulse (PS1) of the data transmission control signal TP indicating the write time of the 1917th display line and an adjusted trailing edge of the pulse (i.e., enable period) of the gate driving signal G1917 which is aligned with the adjusted trailing edge EG2′ of the adjusted gate scanning control signal CLK1′, can be increased.
In present disclosure, a duty cycle and a frequency of the gate scanning control signal CLK1 may be as same as the adjusted gate scanning control signal CLK1′. Only the phase of each gate scanning control signal is changed.
In presented embodiment, if the display panel 120 changes to be operated in the first display refresh rate DFR1 from the second display refresh rate DFR2, i.e., the display refresh rate increases, the control circuit 111 can shift the phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1′-CLK4′ to be earlier to generate the adjusted gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLK4 to reduce the time difference between the trailing edge of the pulse (such as PS1, corresponding to the 1917th display line) of the data transmission control signal TP indicating the write time of the display line and the the adjusted trailing edge (such as EG2′) of the adjusted gate scanning control signal (such as CLK1′ which is aligned with the adjusted trailing edge of the gate driving signal G1917).
Such as that, a displayed brightness of the display panel 120 can be balanced between the first display refresh rate DFR1 and the second display refresh rate DFR2, whatever from a higher display refresh rate to a lower display refresh rate, or from a lower display refresh rate to a higher display refresh rate.
It should be noted here, a variation of the display refresh rate of the display panel 120 can be detected by the timing control device 110. When the display refresh rate is varied from the higher first display refresh rate DFR1 to the lower second display refresh rate DFR2, the timing control device 110 sets the control circuit 111 to generate the adjusted gate scanning control signals CLK1′˜CLK4′ by delaying the phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1˜CLK4.
Please refer to
Take the gate scanning control signal CLK1 as an example, a data charging time CT1 of the 1917th display line can be determined by a time difference between a trailing edge of the pulse PS1 of the data transmission control signal TP with respect to the 1917th display line and a trailing edge of the pulse (i.e., enable period) of the gate driving signal G1917, which is aligned with the trailing edge of the gate scanning control signal CLK1.
When the display panel 120 operated in a second display refresh rate DFR2 is detected, and a second frequency of the second display refresh rate DFR2 is lower than a first frequency of the first display refresh rate DFR1, the control circuit 111 can reduce a duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP to generate an adjusted data transmission control signal TP', such that the data charging time is increased.
In presented embodiment, the control circuit 111 can narrow a width of each pulse of the data transmission control signal TP, in other words, can reduce the duty cycle, to generate the adjusted data transmission control signal TP'. Take the gate scanning control signal CLK1 as an example, an adjusted data charging time CT3 of one display line can be determined by a time difference between a trailing edge of the narrowed pulse PS1′ of the adjusted data transmission control signal TP' and the trailing edge of the pulse (i.e., enable period) of the gate driving signal G1917 which is aligned with the trailing edge of the gate scanning control signal CLK1.
Of course, if the display panel 120 changes to be operated in the first display refresh rate DFR1 from the second display refresh rate DFR2, the control circuit 111 can increase the duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP' to generate the adjusted data transmission control signal TP. Such as that, a displayed brightness of the display panel 120 can be maintained in the variable refresh rate (VRR) application.
Please refer to
Please refer to
In present embodiment, the GOA 521 can be implemented by any gate on array circuit well known by a person skilled in this art, the S-IC 522 also can be implemented by any source driving circuit well known by a person skilled in this art, and there are no more special limitations here.
In this embodiment, the data enable signal DE can be provided by a front-end circuit, such as a television chip. The control circuit 511 can detect a display refresh rate according to the data enable signal DE. In detail, the data enable signal DE can provide a certain time period for keeping on a low voltage level, and the certain time period is a vertical blanking time period. The control circuit 511 can detect the display refresh rate by identifying the vertical blanking time period according to the data enable signal DE. If a time length of the vertical blanking time period getting longer, the control circuit 511 can determine the display refresh rate is reduced, and if the time length of the vertical blanking time period getting shorter, the control circuit 511 can determine the display refresh rate is increased.
Furthermore, the control circuit 511 can generate the frame start signal STV according to the data enable signal DE. The control circuit 511 also can obtain the display refresh rate according to the frame start signal STV. Wherein, the frame start signal STV provides a plurality of vertical start pulses, and the control circuit 511 can obtain the display refresh rate by calculating two neighbored start pulses.
The control circuit 511 can adjust phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLKx or adjust a duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP according to the detected display refresh rate known by detecting the frame start signal STV. If the display refresh rate is varied from a higher first frequency to a lower second frequency, the control circuit 511 can delay the phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLKx, or reduce the duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP. On the contrary, if the display refresh rate is varied from the lower first frequency to the higher second frequency, the control circuit 511 can shift the phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLKx to be earlier, or increase the duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP.
A hardware structure of the control circuit 511 can be implement by digital circuit. Or the control circuit 511 can be implemented by any processor or controller chip having operation capability and well known by a person skilled in this art.
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The control circuit 611 receives the digital value DRV and obtain the display refresh rate by decoding the digital value DRV. The control circuit 511 can adjust phases of the gate scanning control signalsCLK1-CLKx or adjusts a duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP according to the detected display refresh rate. If the display refresh rate is varied from a higher first frequency to a lower second frequency, the control circuit 611 can delay the phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLKx, or reduce the duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP. On the contrary, if the display refresh rate is varied from the lower first frequency to the higher second frequency, the control circuit 611 can shift the phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLKx to be earlier, or increase the duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP.
Please refer to
In this embodiment, the timing control device 710 includes a control circuit 711. The control circuit 711 receives a data enable signal DE and generates a frame start signal STV, a plurality of gate scanning control signal CLK1-CLKx, an output enable signal OE, a shading signal KB and a data transmission signal TP according to the data enable signal DE. The control circuit 711 transports the frame start signal STV, the gate scanning control signal CLK1-CLKx, the output enable signal OE and the shading signal KB to the G-IC 721 and transports the data transmission signal TP to the S-IC 722.
The control circuit 711 can obtain a display refresh rate according to the data enable signal DE. The control circuit 711 can further adjust phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLKx according to the detected display refresh rate.
In present embodiment, the G-IC 721 can be implemented on an integrated circuit, and a hardware structure of the G-IC 721 can be implemented by any gate driving circuit well known by a person skilled in the art. The S-IC 722 also can be implemented by any source driving circuit well known by a person skilled in the art. There are no special limitations here.
On the other way, in another embodiment, in response to the variation of the display refresh rate, the control circuit 711 can adjusting the duty cycle of the data transmission control signal TP according to the detected display refresh rate. Please refer to
Such as that, by adjusting the plurality of gate scanning control signals or adjusting the data transmission control signal, the control circuit 711 can adjust the data charging time for a display line according to the display refresh rate, and a displayed brightness of the display panel can be maintained.
Please refer to
The control circuit 1011 can decode the digital value DRV to obtain display refresh rate, and generates a frame start signal STV, a plurality of gate scanning control signal CLK1-CLKx, an output enable signal OE, a shading signal KB and a data transmission signal TP according to the display refresh rate. In this embodiment, the control circuit 1011 can further adjust phases of the gate scanning control signals CLK1-CLKx according to the detected display refresh rate, or adjust the data transmission control signal TP, for driving a display panel under the currently detected display refresh rate.
Please refer to
Detail of the steps mentioned above have been described in the above embodiments, and no more repeated description here.
In summary, in preset embodiments, in response to the variable display refresh rate, the timing control device can adjust the gate scanning control signals or adjust the data transmission control signal to adjust data charging time for each display line of the display panel. Such as that, a displayed brightness of the display panel can be maintained in the variable refresh rate application, and a performance of the display panel can be improved.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope or spirit of the disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the disclosure cover modifications and variations of this disclosure provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
This application claims the priority benefit of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 63/159,980, filed on Mar. 11, 2021. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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63159980 | Mar 2021 | US |