Backlight dimming and LCD amplitude boost

• US 7,916,153 B1
• Filed: 12/12/2007
• Issued: 03/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Lew, Stephen D., Ogrinc, Michael A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sajous; Wesner
• Application Number:
  US11/955,276
• Time in Patent Office: 1,203 Days
• Field of Search: 345/418, 345/581, 345589-591, 345/600, 345/604, 345545-547, 345/530, 345/549, 345/204, 345/690, 345/207, 345/211, 345/102, 345/22, 348/461, 348/467, 348/469, 348/496, 348/488, 348/514, 348519-520, 348/557, 348/560, 348602-603, 348687-708, 358515-520
• US Class Current: 345/589
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/0276 for the purpose of adaptation to the characteristics of a display device, i.e. gamma correction
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/0626 for control of overall brightness
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/064 by time modulation of the brightness of the illumination source
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/0646 Modulation of illumination source brightness and image signal correlated to each other
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/0653 Controlling or limiting the speed of brightness adjustment of the illumination source
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2330/021 Power management, e.g. power saving
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/16 Calculation or use of calculated indices related to luminance levels in display data
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3406 Control of illumination source illumination devices structurally associated with liquid crystal cells G02F1/1336
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3685 Details of drivers for data electrodes

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention generally provide m Methods and apparatus for reducing power consumption of backlit displays are described. Power consumption is reduced by dimming backlighting by a first scale factor and boosting pixel values by a second scale factor to compensate for the dimming. The scale factors may be constant values. Alternately, one or both of the scale factors may be determined based on pixel values for one or more frames to be displayed and/or one or more frames that have been displayed. For example, scale factors may be calculated based on an average linear amplitude of one or more frames of pixel values or from a maximum pixel value of one or more frames of pixel values. A graphical processing system is described including an integrated circuit capable of transforming a pixel value from a gamma-compensated space to a linear space.

Claims

1. A graphical processing system, comprising:

a frame buffer;

a decoder configured to receive an encoded video stream and to decode the video stream into individual frames sent to the frame buffer;

an overlay buffer configured to receive frames from the frame buffer;

a color space converter configured to receive frames from the overlay buffer and to convert a decoded image from a first color space to a second color space;

a de-gamma module configured to transform gamma-compensated pixel values to linear space;

a combiner unit configured to combine frames from a primary buffer and the de-gamma module for a display, wherein the combiner unit includes a pixel boost module configured to boost pixel values during a scanout routine, in which pixel values are sent to the display.

2. The graphical processing system of claim 1, wherein the pixel boost module is further configured to:

dim backlighting of the display; and

increase values of pixels to be displayed on the display to compensate for the dimming.

3. The graphical processing system of claim 1, wherein the display is a liquid crystal display of a laptop computer.

4. The graphical processing system of claim 1, wherein the display is a liquid crystal display of a handheld computer.

5. The graphical processing system of claim 1, wherein the display is a liquid crystal display of a still camera, motion camera, video phone, or cellular phone.

6. The graphical processing system of claim 5, wherein the dimming of backlighting of the display comprises changing a duty cycle of a pulse width modulated output signal.

7. A computing device configured for graphical processing, the computing device comprising:

a memory for storing instructions and a frame buffer; and

an integrated circuit configured to execute instructions stored in the memory,

the integrated circuit comprising;

an overlay buffer configured to receive frames from the frame buffer,

a color space converter configured to receive frames from the overlay buffer and to convert a decoded image from a first color space to a second color space,

a de-gamma module configured to transform gamma-compensated pixel values to linear space, and

a combiner unit configured to combine frames from a primary buffer and the de-gamma module for a display, wherein the combiner unit includes a pixel boost module configured to boost pixel values during a scanout routine, in which pixel values are sent to the display.

8. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the pixel boost module is further configured to:

dim backlighting of the display; and

increase values of pixels to be displayed on the display to compensate for the dimming.

9. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the display is a liquid crystal display of a laptop computer.

10. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the display is a liquid crystal display of a handheld computer.

11. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the display is a liquid crystal display of a still camera, motion camera, video phone, or cellular phone.

12. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the dimming of backlighting of the display comprises changing a duty cycle of a pulse width modulated output signal.