Electronic display spatiotemporal dithering systems and methods

An electronic device comprising:

• an electronic display configured to display an image based at least in part on display image data that indicates target luminance in the image using a first bit-depth;
• and
• a display pipeline coupled to the electronic display, wherein the display pipeline is configured to generate the display image data based at least in part on dithered image data and comprises dither processing circuitry programmed to:
• determine a first pixel cluster in input image data that indicates target luminance in the image using a second bit-depth greater than the first bit-depth, wherein the first pixel cluster comprises a first plurality of pixel groups;
• determine a first phase combination to be used to dither the first pixel cluster based at least in part on a previous phase combination used to dither a previous pixel cluster, wherein the first phase combination associates a different dither phase to each of the first plurality of pixel groups;
• determine a first most significant bit portion and a first least significant bit portion of the input image data corresponding a first pixel group in the first pixel cluster;
• determine a first dither pattern to be applied at the first pixel group based at least in part on the first least significant bit portion corresponding with the first pixel group and a first dither phase associated with the first pixel group by the first phase combination;
• and
• apply the first dither pattern to the first most significant bit portion corresponding with the first pixel group to generate the dithered image data corresponding with the first pixel group with the first bit-depth.