Patent ID: 7453423

Claim:
A plasma display comprising: a plasma display panel; and a driving section for driving the plasma display panel by segmenting one field of display screen into a plurality of sub-fields weighted based on intensity level; the plasma display panel having first and second substrates arranged opposite to each other; a plurality of surface-discharge electrode pairs formed with scan electrodes and sustain electrodes that are arranged parallel one with another with a discharge gap, on an opposed surface of the first substrate to the second substrate; a plurality of data electrodes provided in a form intersecting with the surface-discharge electrode pairs, on an opposed surface of the second substrate to the first substrate; a plurality of unit cells formed at intersections of the plurality of surface-discharge electrode pairs and the plurality of data electrodes; a discharge gas filled between the first substrate and the second substrate, including an interior of the unit cells; a first dielectric layer covering the plurality of surface-discharge electrode pairs; and a second dielectric layer covering the plurality of data electrodes; the driving section setting a scanning time period for applying, line-sequentially for every sub-field, a scan pulse to the scan electrodes and, simultaneously, applying a display data pulse synchronous with the scan pulse to the data electrodes, thereby selecting a unit cell and causing a write discharge in the selected unit cell, and a sustaining time period for applying a sustain pulse alternately to the sustain electrodes and the scan electrodes and causing a sustain discharge within the unit cells; wherein a sustain-discharge emission intensity ratio control section is provided to set, for every pulse, a charge-recovering time period for recovering a charge on a capacitance component of the plasma display panel and a clamp timing period for applying a predetermined sustain voltage to the sustain electrodes or the scan electrodes after the charge-recovering time period through clamp start timing, and to set a sustain-discharge emission intensity ratio, as a ratio of a maximal discharge intensity in the clamp timing period with reference to a discharge intensity in the clamp start timing to a maximum discharge intensity in the charge-recovering time period, at a value that a discharge in the clamp timing period is to spread up to an end of the unit cell.