An electrophoretic display driving waveform based on improvement of activation pattern

Abstract

Electrophoretic display (EPD) technology has become one of the main supporting pillars of the electronic paper display industry. Despite its benefits, the EPD technology suffers from several disadvantages such as non-fixed threshold voltage value for gray scale display. In addition, the display has to repeatedly refresh between white and black states to eliminate ghost image when it needs to update a new image. The traditional driving waveform for the EPD includes four stages: erasing the original image, resetting to black state, clearing to white state, and writing a new image. A flicker can be found when transferring between two adjacent stages. A new driving waveform based on the improvement of activation pattern is proposed to weaken the ghost image and reduce the flicker. Experimental results show that the proposed driving waveform could weaken the ghost image effectively and reduce the number of flickers by 50%. Compared with the traditional driving waveform, the driving waveform of this work has a better performance.

Keywords

electrophoretic display / driving waveform / ghost image / flicker

References

[1] ZhouG F, JohnsonM T, CortieR, ZehnerR, AmundsonK, KnaianA, ZionB, HenzenA, KamerJ. Driving schemes for active matrix electrophoretic displays [C]. Proc IDW’03, 2003, Utsunomiya, Japan, SID: 239-242

[2] ZhouG F, JohnsonM T, ZehnerR, AmundsonK, HenzenA, KamerJ. Perspectives and challenges of electrophoretic displays [C]. Proc IMID, 2005, Seoul, Korea, IMID: 236-240

[3] JohnsonM T, ZhouG F, ZehnerR, AmundsonK, HenzenA, KamerJ. High-quality images on electrophoretic displays [C]. Proc SID’06, 2006, Boston, USA America, SID: 175-180

[4] ZhouG F, JohnsonM T, CortieR, ZehnerR, AmundsonK, HenzenA, KamerJ. Addressing an active matrix electrophoretic display [C]. Proc IDW’04, 2004, Utsunomiya Japan, IDW: 1729-1732

[5] LiuY-y, GengW-d, DaiY-ping. OLED-on-silicon chip with new pixel circuit [J]. Journal of Central South University, 2012, 19(5): 1276-1282

[6] BertT, SmetH D, BeunisF, NeytsK. Complete electrical and optical simulation of electronic paper [J]. Displays, 200650-55

[7] BertT, SmetH D. The microscopic physics of electronic paper revealed [J]. Displays, 2003103-110

[8] InoueS, KawaiH, KanbeS, SaekiT, ShimodaT. High-resolution microencapsulated electrophoretic display (EPD) driven by poly-Si TFTs with four-level Grayscale [J]. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2002, 49(8): 1532-1539

[9] ComiskeyB, AlbertJ D, YoshizawaH, JacobsonJ. An electrophoretic ink for all-printed reflective electronic displays [J]. Nature, 1998253-255

[10] ChenY, AuJ, KazlasP, RitenourA, GatesH, MccrearyM. Flexible active-matrix electronic ink display [J]. Nature, 2003136-136

[11] KaoW C. Electrophoretic display controller integrated with Real-Time halftoning and partial region update [J]. IEEE Journal of Display Technology, 201036-44

[12] KaoW C, YeJ A, LinF S, LinC, SpragueR. Configurable timing controller design for active matrix electrophoretic display with 16 gray levels [C]. International Conference on Consumer Electronics, 2009, Las Vegas, NV, USA, IEEE: 1-2

[13] KaoW C, ChuM I, YeJ A, LiuJ J, HsiaoP Y. Design of flexible electrophoretic display controller with reduced waveform lookup tables [C]. IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics, 2010, Las Vegas, NV, USA, IEEE: 49-50

[14] KaoW C, ChangW T, YeJ A. Driving waveform design based on response latency analysis of electrophoretic displays [J]. IEEE Journal of Display Technology, 2012, 8(10): 596-601

[15] WangZ X, LiuZ Y. The key technology of e-reader based on electrophoretic display [C]. ICSTE 2010, 2010, San Juan, USA, ICSTE: 333-336

[16] LuC M, WeyC L. A controller design for micro-capsule active matrix electrophoretic displays [J]. IEEE Journal of Display Technology, 2011, 7(8): 434-442