Flat panel display system and image signal interface method thereof

• US 6,480,180 B1
• Filed: 11/08/1999
• Issued: 11/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Samsung Display Company Limited (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Moon, Seong-Hwan
• Primary Examiner(s): WU, XIAO MIN
• Application Number:
  US09/435,357
• Time in Patent Office: 1,100 Days
• Field of Search: 345/87, 345/88, 345/89, 345/98, 345/100, 345/204, 345/205, 345/206, 345/211
• US Class Current: 345/98
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/13452 Conductors connecting driver circuitry and terminals of panels
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3685 Details of drivers for data electrodes
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/006 Details of the interface to the display terminal specific for a display terminal using a CRT G09G1/167; using a flat panel G09G3/2096; circuits for interfacing with colour displays G09G5/04

Abstract

A flat panel display system in which the interface for transmitting an image signal to a flat panel display device like a liquid crystal display module is accomplished by a low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) specification, to thereby reduce the number of components, transmission lines, and an electromagnetic interference (EMI), and a method of such a flat panel display system in which the image signal including image data is transmitted as a low-voltage differential signal from a predetermined image signal transmitting source to a composite driver IC that outputs a display signal for forming a predetermined picture. A large amount of data is transmitted at a high speed through a reduced number of transmission lines, to thereby obtain a flat panel display having a full color high resolution. The reduced number of transmission lines that constitute an LCD module eliminates an EMI problem, and even when the transmission line is exposed to a noise source, the influence from such a noise source can be minimized, to thereby perform a low noise data transmission.

Claims

1. A method for interfacing an image signal for a flat panel display system, comprising the steps of:

generating a first low-voltage differential signal and a second low-voltage differential signal;

transmitting the first low-voltage differential signal to a composite driver IC that outputs a display signal; and

transforming the second low-voltage differential signal to a transistor-transistor logic (TTL) signal, and transmitting the TTL signal to the composite driver.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said first low-voltage differential signal is transmitted directly from an image signal transmitting source to said composite driver integrated circuit (IC).

3. The method of claims 1, wherein the second low-voltage differential signal is transformed to a transistor-transistor logic (TTL) signal and transmitted to the composite driver IC by a one chip integrated circuit, and

said first low-voltage differential signal is an image signal and said TTL signal is a control signal.

4. A flat panel display system, comprising:

an image signal transmitting source having a low-voltage differential signal transmitting unit for converting an image signal that is a TTL signal, containing an image data and a control signal, into a low-voltage differential signal, and transmitting the converted low-voltage differential signal;

a one-chip IC for converting the low-voltage differential signal transmitted from the low-voltage differential signal transmitting unit to a TTL signal comprising a first TTL signal corresponding to the image data and a second TTL signal corresponding to the control signal, converting the first TTL signal to a low-voltage differential image signal and transmitting the converted low-voltage image signal and the second TTL signal; and

an LCD panel having a composite driver IC to which said low-voltage differential image signal and said second TTL signal of said one-chip IC are input, and that converts the low-voltage differential image signal to a TTL signal, and that outputs as a signal for driving said LCD panel the TTL signals containing the image data and control signal.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein the image signal transmitting source is in a main body of a notebook computer.

6. The system according to claim 4, wherein the image signal transmitting source is a main body of a desktop computer.

7. The system according to claim 4, wherein low-voltage differential signal transmission lines between said one-chip IC to the composite driver IC are four or less.

8. A flat panel display system, comprising:

an image signal transmitting source having a low-voltage differential signal transmitting unit for converting a first TTL signal into a low-voltage differential signal, and transmitting a first low-voltage differential signal converted from a second TTL signal containing an image data contained in the first TTL signal and a second low-voltage differential signal converted from a third TTL signal containing a control signal contained in the first TTL signal;

a one-chip IC to which said second low-voltage differential signal is input and converted to a fourth TTL signal, and that converts a timing format of the fourth TTL signal and transmits a fifth TTL signal; and

an LCD panel having a composite driver IC to which the first low-voltage differential signal is input so as to be converted into a sixth TTL signal, and the fifth TTL signal is input from said one-chip IC, and that outputs as a signal for driving the LCD panel the fifth signal and the sixth TTL signal containing the image data and control signal.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein said image signal transmitting source is in a main body of a notebook computer.

10. The system according to claim 8, wherein said image signal transmitting source is in a main body of a desktop computer.

11. The system according to claim 8, wherein low-voltage differential signal transmission lines between the low-voltage differential signal transmitting unit and the composite driver IC are four or less.