Patent ID: 7268778

Claim:
An apparatus for driving a display panel, the display panel including an icon area on which icons are displayed, where predetermined icons are displayed according to input icon data, and an dot-matrix area on which changeable images are displayed according to input dot-matrix data, the apparatus comprising: a main display controller, which divides input image data into the icon data and the dot-matrix data; an icon display controller, which processes the icon data received from the main display controller and simultaneously outputs separate icon data and timing control signals, according to an internal arrangement of the icon area of the display panel; a dot-matrix display controller, which processes the dot-matrix data received from the main display controller and simultaneously outputs separate dot-matrix data and timing control signals, according to an internal arrangement of the dot-matrix area of the display panel; an icon driver, which drives the icon area of the display panel according to the separate icon data and the timing control signals received from the icon display controller; a dot-matrix driver, which drives the dot-matrix area of the display panel according to the separate dot-matrix data and the timing control signals received from the dot-matrix display controller; a first DC-DC converter, which boosts an input DC voltage using a coil and supplies the boosted voltage as a first boost voltage to the dot-matrix driver; and a second DC-DC converter, which boosts the input DC voltage using a capacitor and supplies the boosted voltage as a second boost voltage to the icon driver.