Novel driving circuit with fast energy transfer speed and high efficiency for plasma televisions

A novel driver with low-cost and low-rating devices is presented for plasma display panels (PDPs), based on a compromise of high efficiency and fast energy transfer speed. Since the proposed driver has been designed by devices with half of voltage rating compared with the conventional drivers, it can take advantages of semiconductor devices with reduced conduction and switching losses as well as cheaper costs. The proposed driver configures the sustain circuit and the resonant circuit in such a way that the resonant network is energized by the sustain voltage level and the half sustain voltage level in charging and discharging the panel capacitor, respectively. Therefore, the proposed driver is designed for the purposed of fast voltage transition and high efficiency during the up-commutation and down-commutation periods, respectively. Moreover, the proposed driver is supplied from half of required sustain voltage level. The reduced supply voltage of the driver results in cost reduction and improved efficiency in the power supply blocks. As a result, the PDP driver presented in this paper can feature faster sustain voltage transition, higher brightness, high efficiency, and lower cost.