This application claims the priority benefit of China application serial no. 201611094099.1, filed on Dec. 2, 2016. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
The invention relates to a timing controller circuit, and more particularly, to a timing controller circuit of an electronic paper display apparatus.
In recent years, as display apparatuses gradually developed to be lighter and thinner, electronic paper display apparatuses now become one display apparatus that meets public demands. With advantages of thinness and lightness, durability and low power consumption for energy saving and environmental protection, electronic paper display apparatuses have been widely applied in electronic readers (e.g., electronic books, electronic newspaper) or other electronic component (e.g., electronic tags) on the market.
In the prior art, an external microcontroller unit (MCU), a system-on-a-chip (SOC) or other embedded systems are generally used as a system application control in a related application of an electronic paper display apparatus. The system application control can control a display function of the electronic paper display panel by controlling a timing controller circuit of the electronic paper display apparatus. Accordingly, in such related application, a display control and a display mode of the electronic paper display panel will both be selected by the system application control. However, a development time for the electronic paper display apparatus can be extended if the display control and the display mode are both selected by the system application control, and the timing controller circuit can have difficulties in adjusting the display quality.
The invention is directed to a timing controller circuit of an electronic paper display apparatus, which is configured to drive an electronic paper display panel to provide favorable display quality.
A timing controller circuit of an electronic paper display apparatus according to the invention includes an image processing circuit and a timing controller. The image processing circuit receives an image signal and analyzes the image signal according to a signal component of the image signal, so as to determine a display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus. The image processing circuit selects a driving signal waveform according to the determined display mode. The timing controller is electrically connected to the image processing circuit. The timing controller outputs the selected driving signal waveform to drive an electronic paper display panel of the electronic paper display apparatus to display image frames.
In an embodiment of the invention, the signal component is a grayscale signal selected from the image signal.
In an embodiment of the invention, the display mode includes a static display mode and a dynamic display mode.
In an embodiment of the invention, the image signal includes a previous image frame and a current image frame. The image processing circuit determines whether the display mode is the static display mode or the dynamic display mode according to a difference between the previous image frame and the current image frame.
In an embodiment of the invention, the image processing circuit determines that the display mode is the dynamic display mode if the difference between the previous image frame and the current image frame is continuous.
In an embodiment of the invention, the image processing circuit determines that the display mode is the static display mode if the difference between the previous image frame and the current image frame is non-continuous.
In an embodiment of the invention, the image processing circuit further analyzes the image signal according to the signal component of the image signal so as to determine a type of the image frame, and selects the driving signal waveform according to the determined type of the image frame.
In an embodiment of the invention, the type of the image frame includes a black and white image frame and a grayscale image frame.
In an embodiment of the invention, the image processing circuit and the timing controller are disposed on the same chip.
In an embodiment of the invention, the electronic paper display apparatus includes a driving circuit for driving the electronic paper display panel to display the image frame. The driving circuit is disposed on the electronic paper display panel. The timing controller outputs the selected driving signal waveform to the driving circuit. The driving circuit drives the electronic paper display panel to display the image frame according to the selected driving signal waveform.
Based on the above, as described in the exemplary embodiments of the invention, the image processing circuit selects the driving signal waveform according to the determined display mode and provide the driving signal waveform to the timing controller in order to drive the electronic paper display panel so the electronic paper display panel provides favorable display quality.
To make the above features and advantages of the present disclosure more comprehensible, several embodiments accompanied with drawings are described in detail as follows.
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.
Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred embodiments of the 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.
Embodiments are provided below to describe the invention in detail, though the invention is not limited to the provided embodiments, and the provided embodiments may be suitably combined. The term “coupling/coupled” used in this specification (including claims) of the present application may refer to any direct or indirect connection means. For example, “a first device is coupled to a second device” may be interpreted as “the first device is directly connected to the second device” or “the first device is indirectly connected to the second device through other devices or connection means.” In addition, the term “signal” may refer to a current, a voltage, a charge, a temperature, data, electromagnetic wave or any one or multiple signals.
In the present embodiment, an image signal source 200 is configured to output an image signal IN to the timing controller circuit 110. The image signal source 200 is, for example, a continuous image signal source which includes, but not limited to, a video interface such as High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), Digital Visual Interface (DVI), Video Graphics Array (VGA) interface or other embedded systems for outputting image signals to a liquid crystal display apparatus.
In other words, in the present embodiment, the timing controller circuit 110 of the electronic paper display panel 120 receives the image signal IN to be outputted to the liquid crystal display apparatus by using the video interface of the image signal source 200 in the related art. That is to say, in the present embodiment, the video interface of the image signal source 200 is used as an input interface so the timing controller circuit 110 of the electronic paper display apparatus 100 adaptively controls and selects a display mode to provide favorable display quality.
Specifically, the timing controller circuit 110 of the present embodiment includes an image processing circuit 112 and a timing controller 114. The image processing circuit 112 and the timing controller 114 are, for example, disposed on the same chip so the timing controller circuit 110 adaptively controls and selects the display mode to provide favorable display quality. Unlike the prior art, the display control and the display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus are both selected by the timing controller circuit 110.
In the present embodiment, the image processing circuit 112 is configured to receive the image signal IN and analyze the image signal IN according to a signal component of the image signal IN, so as to determine whether the display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus is a static display mode or a dynamic display mode. The image processing circuit 112 selects a driving signal waveform DS (e.g., those shown in
In the present embodiment, the timing controller 114 is electrically connected to the image processing circuit 112. The timing controller 114 outputs the driving signal waveform DS selected by the image processing circuit 112 to the driving circuit 130 so as to drive the electronic paper display panel 120 of the electronic paper display apparatus 100 to display the image frame. Accordingly, in the present embodiment, the driving circuit 130 drives the electronic paper display panel 120 to display the image frame on the display area AA according to the driving signal waveform DS selected by the image processing circuit 112.
In the present embodiment, after the image signal IN is inputted to the image processing circuit 112, the decoder circuit 310 decodes the image signal IN so as to output a digital image signal DIN and store the digital image signal DIN to the memory circuit 320. The digital image signal DIN outputted by the decoder circuit 310 includes, for example, the grayscale signal. For instance, after decoding, the decoder circuit 310 outputs the image signal in YCbCr format, which is used in an image continuous processing in the first circuitry block 330 and the second circuitry block 340. In the present embodiment, the Y value includes, for example, the grayscale signal served as image data. The grayscale signal is processed in the first circuitry block 330 using a gamma correction. In the present embodiment, the image signal IN is, for example, continuously inputted to the timing controller circuit 110. The timing controller 114 sets a sampling frequency for image frames (e.g., sampling once per 200 milliseconds). However, the sampling frequency is not particularly limited by the invention.
In the present embodiment, the first circuitry block 330 reads the grayscale signal from the memory circuit 320, and sequentially executes image processing operations including a gamma correction operation, a resealing operation, a CR/edge enhance operation and a dithering process by using the gamma calibration circuit 332, the scaling circuit 334, the enhancing circuit 336 and the dithering circuit 338. Then, the first circuitry block 330 outputs the image data to the timing controller 114 so as to drive the electronic paper display panel 120 to display the image frame.
In the present embodiment, the gamma correction operation, the resealing operation, the CR/edge enhance operation and the dithering process may be implemented by using steps in respectively one of the gamma correction operation, the resealing operation, the CR/edge enhance operation and the dithering process in the field, which are not particularly limited by the invention.
In the present embodiment, the analysis circuit 342 of the second circuitry block 340 analyzes the image signal IN according to the grayscale signal, for example. The determination circuit 344 determines whether the display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus 100 is the static display mode or the dynamic display mode and determines a type of the image frame according to an analysis result of the analysis circuit 342. Next, the selection circuit 346 selects the suitable driving signal waveform DS according to the display mode or the type of the image frame determined by the determination circuit 344.
In the present embodiment, the analysis circuit 342 analyzes a grayscale distribution in the image frame by using, for example, a histogram shown in
In this way, the determination circuit 344 determines the type of the image frame according to the analysis result of the analysis circuit 342. Next, the selection circuit 346 selects the suitable driving signal waveform DS according to whether the type of the image frame is the black and white image frame or the grayscale image frame as determined by the determination circuit 344.
Therefore, in the exemplary embodiments of the invention, if the determination circuit 344 determines that the image frame is the black and white image frame, the selection circuit 346 selects the driving signal waveforms V1 and V2 to be outputted to the timing controller 114, for example. If the determination circuit 344 determines that the image frame is the grayscale image frame, the selection circuit 346 selects the driving signal waveforms V1, V2 and V3 to be outputted to the timing controller 114, for example.
In the present embodiment, the determination circuit 344 further determines whether the display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus 100 is the static display mode or the dynamic display mode according to the analysis result of the analysis circuit 342. Next, the selection circuit 346 selects the suitable driving signal waveform DS according to the display mode determined by the determination circuit 344.
For instance,
If it is determined that the difference is present, the mode determination method proceeds to step S120. In step S120, if the difference between the previous image frame and the current image frame is present, the determination circuit 344 adds 1 to a dynamic image count. Then, in step S130, the determination circuit 344 determines whether the dynamic image count is greater than a preset value. If the dynamic image count is greater than the preset value, it means that the difference between the previous image frame and the current image frame is continuous. That is to say, there are differences continuously happening throughout multiple image frames, and the number of different image frames is determined by the preset value. When the difference is continuous, the mode determination method proceeds to step S140, in which the determination circuit 344 determines that a display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus 100 is a dynamic display mode. If the dynamic image count is not greater than the preset value, the mode determination method returns back to step S100, in which the grayscale distribution in the image frame is analyzed once again.
If it is determined that the difference is not present, the mode determination method proceeds to step S150. In step S150, if the difference between the previous image frame and the current image frame is not present, the determination circuit 344 adds 1 to a static image count. Then, in step S160, the determination circuit 344 determines whether the static image count is greater than a preset value. If the static image count is greater than the preset value, it means that the difference between the previous image frame and the current image frame is non-continuous. That is to say, there are no continuous differences happening throughout multiple image frames, and the number of identical image frames is determined by the preset value. When the difference is non-continuous, the mode determination method proceeds to step S170, in which the determination circuit 344 determines that a display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus 100 is a static display mode. If the static image count is not greater than the preset value, the mode determination method returns back to step S100, in which the grayscale distribution in the image frame is analyzed once again.
In addition, enough teaching, suggestion, and description regarding the mode determination method in the present embodiment of the invention may be obtained from the above embodiments depicted in
Accordingly, by using the mode determination method of
In the embodiments of
In summary, as described in the exemplary embodiments of the invention, the image processing circuit selects the driving signal waveform according to the determined display mode or the type of the image frame and provide the driving signal waveform to the timing controller in order to drive the electronic paper display panel so the electronic paper display panel provides favorable display quality. Unlike the prior art, the display control and the display mode of the electronic paper display apparatus are both selected by the timing controller circuit in the exemplary embodiments of the invention.
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.
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