State inversion of plasma panel cell

Two pulses applied in sequence to a cell of a plasma panel cause inversion of the state of the cell. The first, an inverting write pulse Vwi, narrower than a normal write pulse and positioned within the discharge recovery time ahead of a sustain pulse, can cause a cell to switch "on" in such a way that the cell wall voltage builds up to its steady-state value gradually over several sustain cycles. The second is a conventional erase pulse Ve. If the cell is initially "on," Vwihas no effect while Veinverts the cell to the "off" state. On the other hand, if the cell is initially "off," Vwicauses a low-level discharge such that the wall voltage is too low at the time Veis applied to the cell to cause a discharge, but the wall voltage keeps building up to a steady "on" state through a number of sustain cycles. Thus Vehas no effect and the cell remains "on." Using the state inversion, a blinking cursor has been successfully demonstrated on an 80 × 256 plasma panel. Negative image and bandwidth reduction in bilevel picture transmission could also be achieved with state inversion.