DISPLAY CONTROLLER SYSTEM

• US 20130222404A1
• Filed: 03/14/2013
• Published: 08/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: E Ink Corporation (E Ink Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: SiPix Imaging, Inc. (E Ink Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Lin, Craig, Chiu, Wen-Pin
• Granted Patent: US 9,390,661 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/545
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/60 Memory management
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/16 Determination of a pixel data signal depending on the signal applied in the previous frame
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/344 based on particles moving in a fluid or in a gas, e.g. electrophoretic devices electrophoretic devices per se G02F1/167
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/399 using two or more bit-mapped memories, the operations of which are switched in time, e.g. ping-pong buffers

Abstract

A display controller system with a memory controller and buffers is described. The system enables transferring data from the main memory of the CPU to the image memory without interfering the image updating. As a result, the present invention may allow continuously updating the display image and continuously writing new image data from CPU to the image memory which improves overall system performance.

Claims

1. A method of transferring data for a display device wherein a display controller system comprises a first buffer and a second buffer, which method comprises:

(A)

(i) accessing current and next image data from an image memory and comparing the two images,

(ii) finding the appropriate driving waveforms, one for each of the pixels in a given line, from a lookup table,

(iii) forwarding to a display voltage data to be applied to each of the pixels in said given line;

(B) transferring image data from one of the two buffers which is full to the image memory, wherein both steps A and B are completed within a line updating time period, and

(C) repeating steps A and B in an interleaving manner and step B is present only when both buffers are full.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein step C is carried out in more than one frame period.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein step C is carried out in more than one waveform driving period.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said display is an electrophoretic display.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said line updating time period is calculated from a frame period divided by the number of lines of pixels.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the two buffers operate as ping-pong buffers.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said image memory has at least three spaces.