Display device, display panel driver, and image data signal transmission method

A display panel driver for receiving an image data signal in which unit transmission blocks, each having a pixel data block including at least one pixel data piece indicating a luminance level of a pixel, are consecutively arranged and driving a display panel based on the image data signal received, wherein

• clock data is added contiguously to a head of the pixel data block in each of the unit transmission blocks, and an inversion flag that indicates whether logic level inversion processing has been performed on the at least one pixel data piece is added immediately before the clock data, and
• the driver includes:
• a clock generating unit for generating a clock signal phase-synchronized with the clock data included in the image data signal received;
• a data take-in unit for taking in and outputting a resultant obtained by inverting a logic level of the at least one pixel data piece included in the image data signal received in accordance with the clock signal if the inversion flag included in the image data signal received indicates that the inversion processing has been performed, and taking in and outputting the at least one pixel data piece in accordance with the clock signal if the inversion flag indicates that the inversion processing has not been performed;
• and
• a gradation voltage generating unit for converting the pixel data pieces output from the data take-in unit to pixel driving voltages and applying the pixel driving voltages to a plurality of data lines in the display panel.

An image data signal transmission method for transmitting a transmission image data signal to a display panel driver based on input image data including a sequence of pixel data pieces indicating a luminance level of a pixel, the method comprising:

• a first step of determining, for each unit transmission block including a pixel data block including at least one of the pixel data pieces in the sequence of the pixel data pieces in the input image data and clock data contiguously added to a head of the pixel data block, whether data transition has occurred at a boundary between the clock data and the pixel data block;
• a second step of inverting a logic level of the at least one of the pixel data pieces included in the pixel data block if it is determined that the data transition has not occurred;
• a third step of adding an inversion flag immediately before the clock data, the inversion flag indicating whether logic level inversion processing has been performed on the at least one of the pixel data pieces included in the pixel data block;
• and
• a fourth step of transmitting the transmission image data signal in which unit transmission blocks each including the inversion flag are consecutively arranged to the display panel driver.