Patent ID: 7253569

Claim:
A system, comprising: a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel comprising a plurality of External Electrode Fluorescent Lamps (EEFLs); power supply circuitry capable of supplying power to said plurality of EEFLs; a plurality of lamp voltage monitoring circuits, each electrically coupled to a respective EEFL, each lamp voltage monitoring circuit is capable of generating a signal proportional to the voltage of the EEFL, each lamp voltage monitoring circuit comprises a capacitor formed by a conductive element disposed adjacent to each EEFL and at a point along the length of said EEFL to generate said signal proportional to the voltage of the EEFL; and open lamp detection circuitry capable of receiving each signal proportional to the voltage of each EEFL and generating a feedback signal indicative of the state of one or more of said plurality of EEFLs based on, at least in part, the value of at least one said signal proportional to the voltage of the EEFL.