Patent Publication Number: US-2007103384-A1

Title: Liquid crystal information display

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
      The present invention relates to a liquid crystal information display, particularly to an information system formed of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      LED (light emitting diode) has unique characteristics of high brightness, high reliability and high dimensional adaptability. The outstanding application thereof is the spectacular dynamic billboard. The electronic billboard is an important application among various applications of LED, and it is often an indoor single-unit system or an interconnected multi-unit system. LED billboards are usually seen in medical centers, production lines, airports, and bus/railway stations, and a large-scale LED billboard is often used as an outdoor spectacular advertisement. For an intelligent traffic system, instant information broadcast is an important service; thus, the LED display device plays a leading role in bus/railway stations, seaports/airports, freeways, city roads, and parking areas in instant information service.  
      There are two LED display modes. One is that the display contents are edited in the input device having a system program, and then the data is transmitted via a wired or a wireless communication interface to the display module. The other is that the display module is integrated with the control center, and under the system operation, the data is transmitted via a wired or a wireless communication interface and received by the display module, and then, the display module broadcasts the information instantly; it is usually used in a traffic schedule or a production line.  
      However, being a display unit (pixel), LED has the drawback of low resolution. When the LED display is watched closely, discrete LED elements are seen clearly, which makes the resolution of characters and pictures become inferior; thus, display quality is seriously influenced. To obtain a better resolution, LED of smaller packaging size is adopted as the unitary light-emitting element; however, it brings about the problems of high material consumption, high power consumption and high product price.  
      Besides, owing to LED characteristics and the cost consideration, the LED billboard system is usually monochromatic. A monochromatic LED billboard can only present red character/black background, green character/black background, or orange character/black background; thus, the color performance thereof is somewhat monotonous. If the user adopts a chromatic system alternatively, there are still the problems of low resolution and high price.  
      Further, through a given interval of service, LED brightness decays, and the decay extent of those LED&#39;s will be different. Thus, the brightness of the entire screen will be uneven. For a dynamically displayed image, the characters and pictures will seem waving or floating owing to the persistence of vision.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      The primary objective of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal display (LCD) module to overcome the problems of dazzling, low resolution, and low design flexibility of resolution of the conventional LED electronic billboard.  
      Another objective of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal information display to overcome the problems of high power consumption, monotonous color performance, and uneven brightness/waving and floating image resulting from variation in the decay extent of LED brightness.  
      Further another objective of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal information display, wherein the modularized LCD units can be assembled into low-cost and diversified LCD billboards to meet the users&#39; demands.  
      The present invention proposes a liquid crystal information display, comprising a main-control system having a billboard-operating software, and being used to edit a series or multiple rows of information to be displayed and the display manner of the information, a transmission interface transmitting the edited information via the format of a standard TCP (transmission control protocol) interface.  
      At least one LCD billboard displays the information edited by the main-control system, and at least one control system receives and stores the information transmitted from the transmission interface, and controlling the operation of the LCD billboard. Each LCD billboard is formed of at least one LCD panel and at least one driver circuit board. Via concatenation flat cables, multiple LCD panels can be concatenated to form the desired configuration of the LCD billboard. In practical applications, a single control system can control a single LCD billboard or a group of LCD billboard. Otherwise, a single control system can also respectively control multiple groups of LCD billboard; thus, the broadcasting area of the liquid crystal information display can be enlarged. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram showing the liquid crystal information display according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 2  is another schematic diagram showing the liquid crystal information display according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 3  is a block diagram showing the control system according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 4  is a schematic diagram showing the structure of the LCD billboard according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 5  is a first schematic diagram showing the display unit according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 6  is a second schematic diagram showing the display unit according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 7  is a third schematic diagram showing the display unit according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 8  is a fourth schematic diagram showing the display unit according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 9  is a fifth schematic diagram showing the display unit according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 10  is a schematic diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.  
       FIG. 11  is a schematic diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention.  
       FIG. 12  is a schematic diagram showing the structure of the LCD billboard as shown in  FIG. 11 . 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
      The technical contents of the present invention are to be stated below in cooperation with the attached drawings.  
      Refer to  FIG. 1 a  schematic diagram showing the liquid crystal information display according to the present invention. The liquid crystal information display of the present invention comprises a main-control system  11 , a transmission interface  12 , at least one control system  13 , and at least one LCD billboard  14 .  
      The main-control system  11  has a liquid crystal information display operating software and is used to edit a series or multiple lows of information to be displayed and the display manner of the information. The operating software transforms the input contents into the format of a predetermined standard transmission control protocol. The main-control system  11  may be a personal computer, a notebook computer, a palm-size computer, a personal digital assistant, or a mobile phone, which has the operating software to edit the contents to be displayed in the liquid crystal information display. The user edits the contents to be displayed and the display manner via directly inputting that into the window interface of the operating software.  
      The transmission interface  12  transmits the edited information via the format of a standard TCP (transmission control protocol) interface. The transmission interface  12  may be a wired TCP interface or a wireless TCP interface. The wired TCP interface may be a standard serial interface RS232/RS485, a serial port RJ45, a USB (universal serial bus), or a wired network. The wireless TCP interface may be a RF (Radio Frequency) interface, a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) interface, a Bluetooth interface, or a wireless network.  
      The control system  13  receives and stores the information transmitted from the transmission interface  12 , controls the LCD billboard  14  and drives the LCD billboard  14  to display the information.  
      The LCD billboard  14  displays the information edited by the main-control system  11 .  
      In practical applications, a single control system  13  can control a single LCD billboard  14  or a group of LCD billboards  14 , as shown in  FIG. 1 . Otherwise, as shown in  FIG. 2 , a single control system  13  can also respectively control multiple groups of LCD billboard  14 ; thus, the broadcasting area of the liquid crystal information display can be enlarged.  
      Refer to  FIG. 3 a  block diagram of the control system according to the present invention. The control system  13  comprises a communication unit  131 , a storage unit  132 , a central processing unit  134 , an operation memory unit  135  and a digit/analog converter unit  136 .  
      The communication unit  131  receives the data transmitted from the transmission interface  12 . The TCP interface of the communication unit  131  collaborates with the transmission interface  12  and may be a wired TCP interface or a wireless TCP interface. The wired TCP interface may be a standard serial interface RS232/RS485, a serial port RJ45, a USB (universal serial bus), or a wired network. The wireless TCP interface may be a RF (Radio Frequency) interface, a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) interface, a Bluetooth interface, or a wireless network.  
      The storage unit  132  stores the data received by the communication unit  131 . The central processing unit  134  processes the data stored in the storage unit  132 , executes instructions, and coordinates all those units. The operation memory unit  135  temporarily stores the data or programs processed by the central processing unit  134 . The digit/analog converter unit  136  controls the voltage signals needed by the LCD billboard  14 .  
      Refer to  FIG. 4 a  schematic diagram showing the structure of the LCD billboard  14  according to the present invention. Each LCD billboard  14  comprises at least one display unit  140 . As shown in  FIG. 5 , the display unit  140  further comprises a LCD panel  141  and a control circuit system  142 . The control circuit system  142  further comprises multiple driver elements  143 , and those driver elements  143  control/drive the LCD panel  141  via multiple flat cables  144 . The LCD panel  141  may be a monochromatic or a chromatic one of the group of the transmission type, reflective type and transflective type LCD display panels. The substrate of the control circuit system  142  may be a PCB (printed circuit board) or an FPC (flexible printed circuit).  
      In the design of the LCD panel  141 , the dot, the gap and the shape of the dot can be arbitrarily designed according to various demands. The size of the dot can range from less than 0.2 mm to nearly as large as the electrically-conductive glass substrate, and the shape of the dot is arbitrary. Contrarily, in the conventional LED electronic billboard, the dot, the gap and the shape of the dot of LED are all standardized and without any flexibility. Besides, the light source of the LCD panel  141  is planar and evenly distributed. Contrarily, in the conventional LED electronic billboard, as LED is a point light source, the brightness is almost concentrated at the light-emitting point, which makes the image seem granular. Therefore, the resolution, softness, and visual effect of the LCD panel  141  are all superior to those of the conventional LED electronic billboard. Thus, the present invention can overcome the problems of dazzling, low resolution, and low design flexibility of resolution of the conventional LED electronic billboard. Further, the present invention can also overcome the problems of high power consumption, monotonous color performance, uneven brightness, and waving/floating image of the conventional LED electronic billboard.  
      An input port  1421  and an output port  1422  are separately installed at two ends of the control circuit system  142 . Via those ports and multiple concatenation flat cables  145 , multiple LCD panels  141  arranged side by side can be concatenated to form a desired configuration of LCD billboard  14 . Those LCD panels  141  can be interconnected horizontally and/or vertically, and the LCD billboard  14  shown in  FIG. 4  is formed via horizontal interconnection.  
      Refer to from  FIG. 5  to  FIG. 8 . As shown in  FIG. 5 , the driver elements  143  of the display unit  140  can be installed with an SMT (Surface Mount technology) process; those driver elements  143  are installed to the circuit board and control/drive the LCD panels  141  via multiple flat cables  144 .  
      Otherwise, as shown in  FIG. 6 , the naked driver elements  143   a  are installed with a COB (Chip On Board) process; via the wire-bonding and flip-chip technologies, those driver elements  143   a  are installed to the circuit board and control/drive the LCD panel  141  via multiple flat cables  144 .  
      Otherwise, as shown in  FIG. 7 , the driver elements  143   b  are installed with a TAB (Tape Automated Bonding) process, wherein the wiring pattern is formed on a long tape  144   b  to make a strip of leads, and those driver elements  143   b  are joined to those leads with bumps; those driver elements  143   b  control/drive the LCD panel  141  via the wiring on the tape  144   b.    
      Otherwise, as shown in  FIG. 8 , the driver elements  143   c  are installed with a COG (Chip On Glass) process, wherein those driver elements  143   c  are directly joined to the glass substrate of the LCD display panel  141 ; those driver elements  143   c  are connected to the control circuit system  142  via multiple flat cables  144 .  
      As shown in  FIG. 9 , the display unit  140  can also omit those flat cables  144 , and the terminal sides of the LCD panel  141  can directly join with the terminals of the circuit board of the control circuit system  142 , wherein the installation method of the driver elements  143  can be one of those mentioned above.  
      The applications of the present invention are to be described below. As shown in  FIG. 10 , a housing  15  is used to fix and protect the horizontally interconnected LCD panels  141 , the control circuit systems  142  and the control systems  13 ; thereby, a single LCD billboard  14  is formed. The modularized display units  140 , which are formed of the LCD panels  141  and the control circuit systems  142 , can be assembled into various types of LCD billboards, such as a strip-like LCD billboard shown in  FIG. 10 . Those LCD panels  141  can also be assembled into a billboard with an arbitrary length-width ratio via horizontal and vertical interconnections. As shown in  FIG. 1 , the LCD panels  141  and the control circuit system  142  are interconnected horizontally and vertically. Refer to  FIG. 12 a  schematic diagram showing the structure of LCD billboard  14 . Multiple LCD panels  141  are arranged horizontally and vertically, and multiple concatenation flat cables  145  are used to concatenate those LCD panels  141  section by section, and those sections respectively receive the data transmitted from the control system  13 . Thereby, the assemblage of LCD billboard  14  can be diversified, and the fabrication cost can be reduced.  
      Those described above are only the preferred embodiments of the present invention but not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. Any equivalent modification and variation according to the spirit of the present invention is to be included within the scope of the present invention.