FPC Design Guidelines for Enabling High-Speed Intrapanel Interface in Large-Size LCD TVs

Abstract

In this work, we propose flexible printed circuit (FPC) design guidelines for high-speed signal implementation in large-size and high-resolution liquid crystal display (LCD) TV modules by analyzing signal integrity (SI) characteristics through simulation and measurement. We observed that designing an FPC for LCD TV modules that can minimize insertion loss and crosstalk in the channel is critical to successfully implementing multi-Gbps signal characteristics in large-size and high-resolution LCD TV modules. To prove this experimentally, we investigated the trends of insertion loss, impedance, and crosstalk, which are design parameters of simulation-based FPCs, and designed four FPC samples assuming their application to the intra-panel interface module of a real 75-inch LCD TV. Then, based on the measured S-parameter model, the SI performance was verified and compared by measurement and simulation to demonstrate the validity of the proposed design guidelines. In conclusion, to achieve the SI characteristics of FPCs in LCD TV modules, it is necessary to consider minimizing insertion loss and mitigating crosstalk more than any other electrical performance by enabling the differential P/N pairs to have a strong coupling relationship.