Apparatus and method for driving mobile display device

An apparatus for driving a mobile display device, comprising:

• a liquid crystal panel coupled with the mobile display device and including a plurality of liquid crystal cells each formed in sub-pixel areas of four colors;
• an optical sensor coupled with the mobile display device and operable to detect an amount of ambient light;
• a power saving mode signal generator coupled with the optical sensor and operable to generate a power saving mode signal based on the ambient light amount detected by the optical sensor to set a power saving mode of the liquid crystal panel;
• a controller coupled with the power saving mode signal generator and operable to:
• set a gain value in response to the power saving mode signal;
• to convert external three-color input data into four-color data based on the set gain value;
• and to generate a dimming signal based on the power saving mode signal;
• a panel driver coupled with the liquid crystal panel and operable to display an image based on the four-color data of the liquid crystal panel;
• an inverter coupled with the controller and operable to generate a lamp drive voltage in response to the dimming signal;
• and
• a backlight unit coupled with the inverter and operable to generate light in response to the lamp drive voltage and irradiate the generated light to the liquid crystal panel;
• wherein the power saving mode signal assumes a high state when the ambient light amount is greater than or equal to at a level of a reference signal and a low state when the ambient light amount is smaller than about the level of the reference signal;
• wherein the controller comprises:
• a driver control signal generator operable to generate control signals that control the panel driver using external input synchronous signals;
• a data converter operable to set the gain value based on the power saving mode signal and to convert the external three-color input data into the four-color data based on the set gain value;
• and
• a dimming signal generator that generates the dimming signal using white data of the four-color data and the power saving mode signal.