Patent ID: 7626564

Claim:
An apparatus for driving an electroluminescence display panel, comprising: an icon area where an icon is displayed according to input icon data; a dot-matrix area where a variable image is displayed according to input dot-matrix data, the dot-matrix area comprising a data electrode line and a scan electrode line; a dot-matrix driver to drive the data electrode line of the dot-matrix area; a dot-matrix scan driver to drive the scan electrode line of the dot-matrix area; a switching circuit having a switching element coupled with the data electrode line of the dot-matrix area; an icon column driver to drive a column electrode line of the icon area; an icon row driver to drive a row electrode line of the icon area; a switch; a switching controller; a power supply terminal of the icon column driver; and a separate power supply terminal, wherein a current that is discharged after the dot-matrix area is driven in a horizontal drive period is applied to a driver power supply terminal for the icon area and/or the dot-matrix area, the driver power supply terminal being connected to the data electrode line when the current is applied to the driver power supply terminal, and wherein the switching controller controls the switch to couple either the separate power supply terminal or a common output terminal of the switching circuit to the power supply terminal of the icon column driver.