Patent ID: 7880710

Claim:
A liquid crystal device, comprising: a first electrode; a second electrode; a liquid crystal material sandwiched between the first electrode and the second electrode; a counter connected to receive a clock signal and operating to count the clock signal to generate successive values of a periodic count, the successive values each including a most-significant bit and less-significant bits, and additionally to feed successive ones of the most-significant bit of the count to the first electrode as a first differential component; and second differential component generating means for receiving a digital input value and the successive values of the count, the second differential component generating means comprising a digital phase shifter operating in response to the digital input value and the periodic count, for generating a second differential component in response thereto and for feeding the second differential component to the second electrode, the second differential component comprises a signal differing in phase relative to the first differential component by a phase difference defined by the digital input value.