Data- and Gate-Line-Sharing Pixel Structure and Driving Method for Low-Cost Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Displays

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a cost-effective pixel structure and its driving method for polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCDs). That reduces the number of data and gate lines to half that of a TFT-LCD panel with a typical pixel structure. This leads to a reduction in the cost of the panel because the number of driver ICs is halved. Using only P-channel TFTs reduces the process cost, because fewer masks are needed than for pixel structures with both P- and N-channel TFTs. Provided that the inversion polarity of the two pixels sharing a data line is the same, the driving power consumption is reduced because the dynamic voltage swing range is decreased and the number of necessary data and gate lines is reduced. Finally, the proposed pixel structure can minimize the ΔVp, the kickback voltage at the pixel electrode with respect to the gate-drain parasitic capacitance, variation of the four pixels that share one data line and one gate line. This results in high image quality. The proposed data- and gate-line-sharing pixel structure is suitable for the fabrication of TFT-LCD panels in mobile applications at a low cost, with low power consumption and high image quality.