Patent ID: 8405576

Claim:
A plasma display device comprising: a plasma display panel including a plurality of discharge cells, each of the discharge cells including a display electrode pair formed of a scan electrode and a sustain electrode; a sustain pulse generation circuit for generating a plurality of sustain pulses and alternately applying the generated sustain pulses to the scan electrode and the sustain electrode of at least one of the plurality of discharge cells in a sustain period, one field period including a plurality of subfields, each of the subfields including an initializing period, an address period, and the sustain period; a power recovery circuit for causing each of the plurality of sustain pulses to rise or fall by producing a resonance between an interelectrode capacitance of the display electrode pair of the at least one of the plurality of discharge cells and an inductor; and a clamp circuit for clamping a voltage of each of the plurality of sustain pulses to a power supply voltage or a base potential; wherein, the plurality of sustain pulses includes: at least one first sustain pulse having a first rise time and a first fall time, that causes two light emission peaks in at least one of the plurality of discharge cells; at least one second sustain pulse having a second fall time that is less than the first fall time of the at least one first sustain pulse; and at least one third sustain pulse that has a third rise time that is less than the first rise time of the at least one first sustain pulse, and a third fall time that is less than the first fall time of the at least one first sustain pulse, and causes a single light emission peak in at least one of the plurality of discharge cells, wherein the sustain pulse generation circuit, in the sustain period, consecutively: applies the at least one first sustain pulse to at least one of the scan electrode and the sustain electrode of at least one of the plurality of discharge cells, applies the at least one second sustain pulse to at least one of the scan electrode and the sustain electrode of at least one of the plurality of discharge cells after the first fall time of the at least one first sustain pulse, and applies the at least one third sustain pulse to at least one of the scan electrode and the sustain electrode of at least one of the plurality of discharge cells both during and after the second fall time of the at least one second sustain pulse, such that the at least one third sustain pulse and the at least one second sustain pulse partially overlap each other in time for a first overlap period.