Drive for cholesteric liquid crystal displays
AssigneeEastman Kodak Company
InventorsStanley W. Stephenson, David M. Johnson, Xiang-Dong Mi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Apparatus for driving a cholesteric liquid crystal display wherein the display includes cholesteric liquid crystals having a first planar reflective state and a second transparent focal conic state, which is respectively responsive to different applied fields; an addressing structure having rows and columns of conductors arranged so that when a column and a row overlap, they define a selectable pixel or segment to be viewable or non-viewable; the apparatus being adapted to switch between a first and a second fixed voltage.
Claims7
Apparatus for driving a cholesteric liquid crystal display comprising:
- a) the display including cholesteric liquid crystals having a first planar reflective state and a second transparent focal conic state, which are respectively responsive to different applied fields;
- b) an addressing structure having rows and columns of conductors arranged so that when a column and a row overlap, they define a selectable pixel or segment to be viewable or non-viewable;
- c) a switching mechanism operatively coupled to the addressing structure, the switching mechanism being operative to output either a first fixed voltage and a fixed second voltage;
- d) at least one column voltage divider for each column and at least one row voltage divider for each row within the addressing structure, the row and column voltage dividers being responsive to the first and second fixed voltages to provide one of two selectable voltages for each column and one of two selectable voltages for each row;
- and
- e) a selection circuit operatively coupled to the switching mechanism that selects one of either the first or second voltages in accordance with a predetermined scheme wherein the column voltage divider provides one of two voltages for each column and the row voltage divider provides one of two voltages for each row so that a particular pixel or segment will have an applied voltage that will cause the pixel or segment to selectively be in either a transparent or a reflective state.
A display drive circuit for driving a cholesteric liquid crystal display, the display including cholesteric liquid crystals having a first planar reflective state and a second transparent focal conic state which are respectively responsive to different applied fields, the display further including an addressing structure having rows and columns of conductors arranged so that when a column and a row overlap a pixel or segment is rendered viewable or non-viewable, said circuit comprising:
- a switching mechanism operatively coupled to the addressing structure, the switching mechanism being operative to output either of a first fixed voltage and a second fixed voltage, said first fixed voltage and said second fixed voltage being unipolar relative to each other;
- at least one column voltage divider for each column and at least one row voltage divider for each row, the row and column voltage dividers being responsive to the first and second fixed voltages to provide one of two selectable voltages for each column and one of two selectable voltages for each row;
- and a selection circuit operatively coupled to the switching mechanism that selects one of either the first or second fixed voltages to thereby cause the column voltage divider to provide one of the two selectable voltages for each column and the row voltage divider to provide one of the two selectable voltages for each row to thereby cause the pixels or segments to be in a desired one of either transparent or a reflective state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.