Patent ID: 7102597

Claim:
A driver device for driving a plurality of capacitive light emitting elements by applying a plurality of drive pulses to the plurality of capacitive light emitting elements respectively via a plurality of drive electrodes in accordance with pixel data derived from an inputted picture signal, the plurality of drive electrodes being associated with the plurality of capacitive light emitting elements respectively, the driver device comprising: an electrical charge recovery circuit that includes a capacitor and a coil, a reference voltage being applied to one end of the capacitor, and one end of the coil being connected to the other end of the capacitor; a plurality of electrical charge recovery switches associated with the plurality of drive electrodes respectively, each said electrical charge recovery switch including a first switching element that sends a first current corresponding with electrical charge that has accumulated in the capacitor to the associated drive electrode via the other end of the coil and a second switching element that sends a second current corresponding with electrical charge that has accumulated in the associated capacitive light emitting element to the other end of the coil via the associated drive electrode; a plurality of output buffers associated with the plurality of drive electrodes respectively, each said output buffer including a third switching element that applies a predetermined high voltage to the associated drive electrode in accordance with the pixel data and a fourth switching element that applies the reference voltage to the associated drive electrode in accordance with the pixel data; and a drive control circuit that determines, for each of the drive electrodes, whether a voltage of the drive electrode concerned has shifted from the high voltage to the low voltage or from the low voltage to the high voltage on the basis of the pixel data, and sets either the first or second switching element of the electrical charge recovery switch associated with the drive electrode concerned, to an ON state over a predetermined period if a voltage shift occurs on the drive electrode concerned, but sets the first and second switching elements of the electrical charge recovery switch associated with the drive electrode concerned to an OFF state if the voltage shift does not occur on the drive electrode concerned.